New patents are issued by the USPTO on Tuesdays. Today's Spotlight Patents continue the theme of blockchains (smart contracts, distributed ledgers), and rights management broadly construed. Assigned to CenturyLink, the first of today's patents addresses techniques for validating one or more blockchains without ledger limitations. Assigned to Alibaba, the second patent addresses techniques for symmetric key management in consortium blockchain networks.
10,819,501, "Validating one or more blockchains without ledger limitations," assigned to CenturyLink Intellectual Property LLC.
Abstract
Novel tools and techniques are provided for implementing scaling and distribution of blockchains without ledger limitations. In various embodiments, a computing system might access many instances of a blockchain from many distributed peers. The computing system might parse a first instance of the blockchain accessible from a first distributed peer, to produce a first sample segment of a hash value of one of many blocks of the blockchain. The computing system might compare the first sample segment with a corresponding hash value portion of a second instance of the blockchain accessible from a second distributed peer, without comparing hash values of the entire first instance with those of the entire second instance. Based on a determination that the first sample segment and the corresponding hash value portion do not match, the computing system might send a notification to a user indicating that the first instance and/or second instance is invalid.
10,819,509, "Asymmetric key management in consortium blockchain networks," assigned to Alibaba.
Abstract
Implementations of the present specification provide for management of service keys for consortium blockchain networks within a blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform. Implementations include actions of receiving a request for a service key from a participant in a consortium blockchain network provisioned within the BaaS platform, determining that the participant is authorized for the service key based on a service authorization table that records participant privileges within the consortium blockchain network, providing a key package including an encrypted private key of the service key, and a public key of the service key, and sending the key package to the participant, the participant decrypting the private key of the service key using a public key associated with the participant.
