U.S. Patent 11049402 was awarded to Micron Technology, Inc. on June 29, 2021 and is entitled “Cryptography-based platooning mechanism for autonomous vehicle fleet management.” The first named inventor is Alberto Troia of Munich, . The abstract contains an overview of the patent disclosure:

Disclosed are techniques for managing a platoon of autonomous vehicles. In one embodiment, a method is disclosed comprising establishing a network connection between a plurality of autonomous vehicles, the plurality of autonomous vehicles operating as a platoon; receiving a request from a first autonomous vehicle to deviate from the platoon, the request comprising a digitally signed message from the first autonomous vehicle; assigning the first autonomous vehicle as a second master autonomous vehicle; permanently recording the assignment in a blockchain data structure; instantiating a new platoon path using the first autonomous vehicle as a head of the new platoon path; and disconnecting one or more autonomous vehicles associated with the new platoon path upon determining that the new platoon path is stable, the disconnecting causing the second master autonomous vehicle to manage the one or more autonomous vehicles using a second blockchain stored on the second master autonomous vehicle. Link to Full Patent

This blockchain patent was originally filed on March 25, 2019  as U.S. Patent Application 16/363271 at the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office. The application was them awarded a patent grant and published as U.S. Patent 11049402. The assistant examiner was Sahar Motazedi.

Micron Technology, Inc., who is the original assignee of this patent, has at least 30704 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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