U.S. Patent 11048596 was awarded to Nokia Technologies Oy on June 29, 2021 and is entitled “Hierarchical weighted consensus for permissioned blockchains.” The first named inventor is Anwar I. Walid of Watchung, NJ. The abstract contains an overview of the patent disclosure:

A method of reaching consensus in a blockchain network including a plurality of nodes, including: clustering the nodes into a plurality of sites; randomly selecting a node at each site as a representative; initializing a weight for each node; receiving, by a first representative of a first site, a plurality of transactions received by nodes in the first site; constructing, by the first representative, a first block including the plurality of transactions received by the first representative; performing a weighted consensus mechanism to verify the first block, wherein each of nodes in the first site participates in a weighted Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus mechanism and wherein the consensus is based upon each node’s weight; performing a BFT consensus mechanism by the plurality of representatives on the first block; updating each nodes weight; and updating the representative for each site by selecting the node at each site with the highest weight. Link to Full Patent

This blockchain patent was originally filed on December 14, 2018  as U.S. Patent Application 16/220654 at the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office. The application was them awarded a patent grant and published as U.S. Patent 11048596. The primary examiner was Joshua P Lottich.

Nokia Technologies Oy, who is the original assignee of this patent, has at least 11863 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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