Stranded blockchain

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12225108-B2
Application number	US-202016974271-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 14, 2020
Priority date	Dec 14, 2020
Publication date	Feb 11, 2025
Grant date	Feb 11, 2025

Abstract

A Smartblock that has at least two Blockchains that originates from it and terminates at a second Smartblock to create a Blockstrand where the blocks of the Blockchains contain data that is public, semi-private, or private and enable secure collaboration with the control and security provided for the collaborative work via the blocks of the Blockstrand.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of securely storing data across a network in a blockstrand distributed database, comprising:
generating a Smartblock;
linking a first plurality of data blocks into a first blockchain attached to the Smartblock;
linking at least a second plurality of data blocks into an at least second blockchain attached to the Smartblock; and
terminating the first blockchain and the at least second blockchain at a second Smartblock, wherein each of the data blocks in the first plurality of data blocks and the second plurality of data blocks includes an expiration field;
determining when an expiration threshold in each of the expiration field in each of the data blocks between the first Smartblock and the second Smartblock has been met, and
pruning the blockstrand by deleting the first Smartblock and the data nodes that were located between the first Smartblock and the second Smartblock.

2. The method of securely storing data across the network in the blockstrand distributed database of claim 1 , wherein terminating at the second Smartblock includes generating a previous hash that includes hash data from at least one data block located in each of the first and second blockchains.

3. The method of securely storing data across the network in the blockstrand distributed database of claim 1 , where the Smartblock is a data block with a Smartblock identifier.

4. The method of securely storing data across the network in the blockstrand distributed database of claim 3 , wherein the Smartblock identifier is a smartblock flag.

5. A system for securely storing data across the network in a blockstrand distributed database, comprising:
a processor;
a non-volatile computer memory storing computer-readable instructions configured to:
generating a Smartblock;
linking a first plurality of data blocks into a first blockchain attached to the Smartblock;
linking at least a second plurality of data blocks into an at least second blockchain attached to the Smartblock; and
terminating the first blockchain and the at least second blockchain at a second Smartblock, wherein each of the data blocks in the first plurality of data blocks and the second plurality of data blocks includes an expiration field;
determining when an expiration threshold in each of the expiration field in each of the data blocks between the first Smartblock and the second Smartblock has been met, and
pruning the blockstrand by deleting the first Smartblock and the data nodes that were located between the first Smartblock and the second Smartblock.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein said computer-readable instructions are further configured to:
terminate at the second Smartblock includes generating a previous hash that includes hash data from at least one data block located in each of the first and second blockchains.

7. The system of claim 5 wherein said computer-readable instructions include the Smartblock being a data block with a Smartblock identifier.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein said computer-readable instructions wherein the Smartblock identifier is a smartblock flag.

Assignees

• Damore Brandon E
• Piccionelli Gregory A
• Thatcher Joel P

Inventors

• D'Amore Brandon E
• Piccionelli Gregory A
• Thatcher Joel P

Classifications

• H04L9/50

  using hash chains, e.g. blockchains or hash trees · CPC title

• H04L9/3297

  involving time stamps, e.g. generation of time stamps · CPC title

• G06F16/219 Primary

  Managing data history or versioning (querying versioned data G06F16/2474; querying temporal data G06F16/2477) · CPC title

• G06F16/2255

  Hash tables · CPC title

• H04L9/0643 Primary

  Hash functions, e.g. MD5, SHA, HMAC or f9 MAC · CPC title