U.S. Patent 10680833 was awarded to Apple Inc. on June 09, 2020 and is entitled “Obtaining and using time information on a secure element (SE).” The first named inventor is Xiangying Yang of Cupertino, CA. The abstract contains an overview of the patent disclosure:

A secure element (SE) with a notion of time useful for checking secure items is disclosed herein. Use of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) with secure elements is improved by verifying secure items used by an SE. Methods of obtaining time information by the SE include push, pull, opportunistic, local interface, and multi-check methods. The SE uses the time information to evaluate arriving and stored public key certificates and to discard those which fail the evaluation. The SE, in some embodiments, uses the time information in cooperation with certificate revocation lists (CRLs) and/or online certificate status protocol (OCSP) stapling procedures. A multi-check architecture is provided herein by which more than entity is involved in checking a time value before the time value reaches the SE. The multi-check architecture uses both PKI and blockchain techniques. Link to Full Patent

This blockchain patent was originally filed on August 24, 2017  as U.S. Patent Application 15/686023 at the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office. The application was them awarded a patent grant and published as U.S. Patent 10680833. The primary examiner was James R Turchen.

Apple Inc., who is the original assignee of this patent, has at least 26445 total granted patents in the United States as of the date of this article. This blockchain patent has been cited 0 times by other U.S. patents according to our law firm research, and can be considered an innovative patent in the field of cryptocurrency and blockchain.

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