Amazon Awarded Two Blockchain-Related Patents

Internet retailer Amazon’s filings for two cryptography data-storage solutions have been approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Internet retailer Amazon has been awarded two blockchain-related patents. The two patents were originally filed back in 2018 and 2015 as part of a bid to solidify Amazon’s status as a contender in the domain. The patents, published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Tuesday, relate to cryptographic signatures and expandable data grids.

The first of the patents, called Signature Delegation, outlines a method for the protection of digital signatures while delegating signature authority to subordinates authorized to sign on the behalf of a central entity. The delegation of signature authority resembles the “Merkle Tree” structure -- a binary data structure that facilitates the efficient verification of a large amount of data and is fundamental to blockchain technology.

The patent filing describes a method in which “the signature authority provides a key-distribution service that distributes blocks of cryptographic keys to authorized signing delegates. An authorized signing delegate contacts the key-distribution service and requests a block of cryptographic keys.”

The second patent, Extending Grids in Data Storage Systems, describes a new method for creating extendable shards in a database. Sharding refers to a type of database partitioning that divides large databases into smaller, faster parts called ‘data shards’ that are more easily managed. Such a method is potentially useful for creating considerable flexible datasets -- including the ones seen in a blockchain.

The two patents awarded to Amazon tackle issues with blockchain-enabled distributed data storage that have been previously addressed and leveraged by several blockchain-based data storage startups such as Siacoin, Arweave, and FIlecoin. The patents seem to be developed as an addition to the company’s technological arsenal.

In addition to its blockchain, cryptography and distributed data storage-related projects, Amazon has also filed patents related to cryptocurrency-specific solutions. In April, the U.S Patent and Trademark Office approved Amazon’s filing for a data stream marketplace that would allow governments and law enforcers to track Bitcoin users.