U.S. Patent 11161409 was awarded to FORD GLOBAL TECHNOLOGIES, LLC on November 02, 2021 and is entitled “Systems and methods to securely limit drivability of a vehicle by impaired users.” The first named inventor is Mahmoud Yousef Ghannam of Canton, MI. The abstract contains an overview of the patent disclosure:

Systems and methods for securing limited drivability of a vehicle by impaired drivers using blockchain are provided. The vehicle system uses blockchain to protect and disclose such vehicle deactivation, prevent false enabling/disabling of a vehicle, and saves this information to a shared ledger. A sensor system located on the vehicle, e.g., alcohol interlock sensors, interior sensors, and exterior sensors, may have access to this information along with fleet managers, OEM, and/or users. For example, when the alcohol interlock sensor is activated, it transmits a test request. Subsequently, the other sensors may identify the request and look for a known person inside or in the proximity of the vehicle. In a similar manner, whether the test has been conducted, as well as the results of the test may be verified by the other nodes, e.g., sensors/modules in the vehicle. Upon confirmation that the driver is impaired, the vehicle may be deactivated. Link to Full Patent

This blockchain patent was originally filed on October 21, 2020  as U.S. Patent Application 17/076373 at the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office. The application was them awarded a patent grant and published as U.S. Patent 11161409. The primary examiner was Ryan W Sherwin.

FORD GLOBAL TECHNOLOGIES, LLC, who is the original assignee of this patent, has at least 20806 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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