U.S. Patent 11108559 was awarded to INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION on August 31, 2021 and is entitled “Producing proof of receipt, existence and other data provenance evidence.” The first named inventor is Jason K. Resch of Chicago, IL. The abstract contains an overview of the patent disclosure:

A method of integrating a distributed ledger represented by a blockchain with a distributed storage network (DSN) begins by sending a proof of existence request to the DSN, the proof of existence request including an object name, an object version, a start time and an end time. The method continues by reading the object metadata for the sent object name. The method continues by checking a revision history from object metadata associated with the sent object name to ensure the object existed by the start time through the end time with no deletions and, if the object did not exist by the start time through the end time with no deletions, rejecting the proof of existence request and returning an error response. If the object did exist by the start time on through the end time with no deletions, the method continues by producing and returning an attestation comprising verification information related to the object. Link to Full Patent

This blockchain patent was originally filed on January 02, 2019  as U.S. Patent Application 16/237975 at the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office. The application was them awarded a patent grant and published as U.S. Patent 11108559. The primary examiner was Eric W Shepperd.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION, who is the original assignee of this patent, has at least 150818 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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