Systems and methods for smart contract intervention

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11250439-B2
Application number	US-201816133932-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 18, 2018
Priority date	Sep 19, 2016
Publication date	Feb 15, 2022
Grant date	Feb 15, 2022

Abstract

A method of remedying erroneous transactions in a distributed ledger system may include: determining, by a court system associated with the distributed ledger system, a judgment that a transferring, by a contract of the distributed ledger system during a conducting of a financial transaction, of a quantity of tokens of the distributed ledger system, from a first account corresponding to a first counterparty to a second account corresponding to a second counterparty, is erroneous; and in response to determining the judgment, executing, by a court contract of the distributed ledger system, a transfer function, configured to be responsive to the court contract, to transfer at least a portion of the quantity of tokens from the second account to the first account.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of remedying an erroneous transaction in a distributed ledger system, the method comprising:
determining, by a court system associated with the distributed ledger system, a judgment that a transfer by a token transfer smart contract, while conducting the transaction, of a quantity of tokens of the distributed ledger system from a first account of the distributed ledger system to a second account of the distributed ledger system is erroneous; and
in response to determining the judgment:
determining, by a court smart contract of the distributed ledger system, a balance of tokens of the second account, the court smart contract including program instructions stored in a ledger of the distributed ledger system;
in response to determining that the balance of the second account is less than the quantity of tokens erroneously transferred, executing, by the court smart contract, a restriction function of the token transfer smart contract to prevent transfers of tokens from the second account other than by the court smart contract; and
executing, by the court smart contract, a transfer function of the token transfer smart contract, the token transfer smart contract including program instructions stored in the ledger of the distributed ledger system, the transfer function configured to be responsive to the court smart contract, to transfer at least a portion of the quantity of tokens from the second account to the first account.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving, by the court smart contract, a distributed ledger system transaction including a request from the court system, the request indicating the first and second accounts, and the quantity of tokens erroneously transferred.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, in response to determining that the balance of the second account is greater than or equal to the quantity of tokens erroneously transferred, executing, by the court smart contract, the court transfer function to transfer the quantity of tokens from the second account to the first account.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, in response to determining that the balance of the second account is less than the quantity of tokens erroneously transferred, but greater than zero, executing, by the court smart contract, the court transfer function to transfer the balance of tokens from the second account to the first account.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising updating, by the court smart contract, a debt of erroneously transferred tokens of the second account to be the quantity of tokens erroneously transferred minus the transferred balance of tokens.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising executing, by the court smart contract, a restriction function to prevent transfers of tokens from the second account other than by the court smart contract.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining, by the court smart contract, that a predetermined period of time has passed since a previous checking of the balance of the second account; and
in response to determining that the predetermined period of time has passed, redetermining, by the court smart contract, the balance of tokens of the second account.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising conducting the transaction, including transferring, using a smart contract of the distributed ledger system, the quantity of tokens from the first account to the second account.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the restriction function stores a list of accounts of the distributed ledger system that owe tokens erroneously transferred to them, and the token transfer smart contract reads the list before conducting any transfer of tokens.

10. A system for remedying an erroneous transaction, the system comprising:
at least one non-transitory machine readable storage medium storing program instructions; and
at least one processor configured to execute the program instructions to perform a method of remedying the erroneous transaction in a distributed ledger system, the method including:
determining, by a court system associated with the distributed ledger system, a judgment that a transfer by a token transfer smart contract, while conducting the transaction, of a quantity of tokens of the distributed ledger system from a first account of the distributed ledger system to a second account of the distributed ledger system is erroneous; and
in response to determining the judgment:
determining, by a court smart contract of the distributed ledger system, a balance of tokens of the second account, the court smart contract including program instructions stored in a ledger of the distributed ledger system;
in response to determining that the balance of the second account is less than the quantity of tokens erroneously transferred, executing, by the court smart contract, a restriction function of the token transfer smart contract to prevent transfers of tokens from the second account other than by the court smart contract; and
executing, by the court smart contract, a transfer function of the token transfer smart contract, the token transfer smart contract including program instructions stored in the ledger of the distributed ledger system, the transfer function configured to be responsive to the court smart contract, to transfer at least a portion of the quantity of tokens from the second account to the first account.

11. The system of claim 10 , the method further comprising receiving, by the court smart contract, a distributed ledger system transaction including a request from the court system, the request indicating the first and second accounts, and the quantity of tokens erroneously transferred.

12. The system of claim 10 , the method further comprising, in response to determining that the balance of the second account is greater than or equal to the quantity of tokens erroneously transferred, executing, by the court smart contract, the court transfer function to transfer the quantity of tokens from the second account to the first account.

13. The system of claim 10 , the method further comprising, in response to determining that the balance of the second account is less than the quantity of tokens erroneously transferred, but greater than zero, executing, by the court smart contract, the court transfer function to transfer the balance of tokens from the second account to the first account.

14. The system of claim 13 , the method further comprising updating, by the court smart contract, a debt of erroneously transferred tokens of the second account to be the quantity of tokens erroneously transferred minus the transferred balance of tokens.

15. The system of claim 10 , the method further comprising executing, by the court smart contract, a restriction function to prevent transfers of tokens from the second account other than by the court smart contract.

16. The system of claim 10 , the method further comprising conducting the transaction, including transferring, using a smart contract of the distributed ledger system, the quantity of tokens from the first account to the second account.

17. At least one non-transitory machine readable storage medium having program instructions, which when executed by at least one processor perform a method of remedying an erroneous transaction in a distributed ledger system, the method including:
determining, by a court system associated with the distributed ledger system, a judgment that a transfer by a token transfer contract, while conducting the transaction, of a quantity of tokens of the distributed ledger system

Assignees

• Thomson Reuters Entpr Centre Gmbh

Inventors

• Leidner Jochen Lothar
• Nugent Tim
• Chadwick Sam

Classifications

• G06Q20/065

  using e-cash · CPC title

• G06Q20/10

  specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems · CPC title

• G06Q20/4016

  involving fraud or risk level assessment in transaction processing · CPC title

• G06Q20/407 Primary

  Cancellation of a transaction · CPC title

• G06Q20/06

  Private payment circuits, e.g. involving electronic currency used among participants of a common payment scheme · CPC title