U.S. Patent 11182380 was awarded to nChain Holdings Limited on November 23, 2021 and is entitled “Flow control for probabilistic relay in a blockchain network.” The first named inventor is Patrick MOTYLINSKI of London, . The abstract contains an overview of the patent disclosure:

The invention relates to method for adjusting the minimum and maximum number of peer nodes that a node on the blockchain network will connect with. The adjustment takes in to account the bandwidth and processing capability of the node. Bandwidth capacity of a node is determined based on a maximum data amount processable by the node over a time period. Data is monitored passing through interfaces of the node, to and from peer nodes, and a profile factor of the node is determined from the difference between the input data to output data. Over a plurality of time periods monitoring said data the data analysed is used to set a minimum number of peer nodes and a maximum number of peer nodes connectable to the node according to said monitored data and the maximum number of peers connectable to the node. The method enables a node to adjust the number of connections according to performance limitation factors, such as bandwidth availability and processing performance. With the number of peer node connections determined, the node can further determine a correlation matrix between the interfaces and peer nodes to which it is connected. The matrix can be compiled with correlation coefficients representing the correlation between data processed at each interface of said node. The invention also resides in a corresponding computer readable storage medium, electronic device, node of a blockchain network or blockchain network having such a node. Link to Full Patent

This blockchain patent was originally filed on June 25, 2018  as U.S. Patent Application 16/627722 at the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office. The application was them awarded a patent grant and published as U.S. Patent 11182380. The primary examiner was Glenford J Madamba.

nChain Holdings Limited, who is the original assignee of this patent, has at least 18 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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