U.S. Patent 11172358 was awarded to AT&T MOBILITY II LLC on November 09, 2021 and is entitled “Blockchain-based front-end orchestrator for user plane network functions of a 5G network.” The first named inventor is Arturo Maria of Bellevue, WA. The abstract contains an overview of the patent disclosure:

Containers and container orchestration can be utilized for the creation of an environment that supports virtual network functions (VNFs) representing user plane and/or control plane gateways of 5G networks. Security and/or performance of the 5G network is improved by utilizing blockchain ledgers representing activity associated with the containers. In one aspect, cryptographic blockchain data is appended to a container when the VNF is created and/or modified. The cryptographic blockchain data can create a permanent ledger of activity on the container, which can be utilized to detect malicious attacks and/or unauthorized requests, and/or track activity associated with containers that are utilized to support high performance users and/or services. Further, the cryptographic blockchain data can be utilized for various applications, such as, but not limited to, security, accounting, network performance, governance and risk compliance, etc. Link to Full Patent

This blockchain patent was originally filed on April 30, 2019  as U.S. Patent Application 16/399940 at the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office. The application was them awarded a patent grant and published as U.S. Patent 11172358. The primary examiner was Abiy Getachew.

AT&T MOBILITY II LLC, who is the original assignee of this patent, has at least 2585 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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