Patent Application
20220198387
The bitcoin system was developed to allow electronic cash to be transferred directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution, as described in the white paper entitled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” by Satoshi Nakamoto. A bitcoin (e.g., an electronic coin) is represented by a chain of transactions that transfers ownership from one party to another party. To transfer ownership of a bitcoin, a new transaction is generated and added to a stack of transactions in a block. The new transaction, which includes the public key of the new owner, is digitally signed by the owner with the owner's private key to transfer ownership to the new owner, as represented by the new owner public key. The signing by the owner of the bitcoin is an authorization by the owner to transfer ownership of the bitcoin to the new owner via the new transaction. Once the block is full, the block is “capped” with a block header that is a hash digest of all the transaction identifiers within the block. The block header is recorded as the first transaction in the next block in the chain, creating a mathematical hierarchy called a “blockchain.” To verify the current owner, the blockchain of transactions can be followed to verify each transaction from the first transaction to the last transaction. The new owner need only have the private key that matches the public key of the transaction that transferred the bitcoin. The blockchain creates a mathematical proof of ownership in an entity represented by a security identity (e.g., a public key), which in the case of the bitcoin system is pseudo-anonymous.
To ensure that a previous owner of a bitcoin did not double-spend the bitcoin (i.e., transfer ownership of the same bitcoin to two parties), the bitcoin system maintains a distributed ledger of transactions. With the distributed ledger, a ledger of all the transactions fora bitcoin is stored redundantly at multiple nodes (i.e., computers) of a blockchain network. The ledger at each node is stored as a blockchain. In a blockchain, the transactions are stored in the order that the transactions are received by the nodes. Each node in the blockchain network has a complete replica of the entire blockchain. The bitcoin system also implements techniques to ensure that each node will store the identical blockchain, even though nodes may receive transactions in different orderings. To verify that the transactions in a ledger stored at a node are correct, the blocks in the blockchain can be accessed from oldest to newest, generating a new hash of the block and comparing the new hash to the hash generated when the block was created. If the hashes are the same, then the transactions in the block are verified. The bitcoin system also implements techniques to ensure that it would be infeasible to change a transaction and regenerate the blockchain by employing a computationally expensive technique to generate a nonce that is added to the block when it is created. A bitcoin ledger is sometimes referred to as an Unspent Transaction Output (“UTXO”) set because it tracks the output of all transactions that have not yet been spent.
Although the bitcoin system has been very successful, it is limited to transactions in bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies. Efforts are currently underway to use blockchains to support transactions of any type, such as those relating to the sale of vehicles, sale of financial derivatives, sale of stock, payments on contracts, and so on. Such transactions use identity tokens, which are also referred to as digital bearer bonds, to uniquely identify something that can be owned or can own other things. An identity token for a physical or digital asset is generated using a cryptographic one-way hash of information that uniquely identifies the asset. Tokens also have an owner that uses an additional public/private key pair. The owner public key is set as the token owner identity, and when performing actions against tokens, ownership proof is established by providing a signature generated by the owner private key and validated against the public key listed as the owner of the token. A person can be uniquely identified, for example, using a combination of a username, social security number, and biometric data (e.g., fingerprint). A product (e.g., refrigerator) can be uniquely identified, for example, using the name of its manufacturer and its serial number. The identity tokens for each would be a cryptographic one-way hash of such combinations. The identity token for an entity (e.g., person or company) may be the public key of a public/private key pair, where the private key is held by the entity. Identity tokens can be used to identify people, institutions, commodities, contracts, computer code, equities, derivatives, bonds, insurance, loans, documents, and so on. Identity tokens can also be used to identify collections of assets. An identity token for a collection may be a cryptographic one-way hash of the digital tokens of the assets in the collection. The creation of an identity token for an asset in a blockchain establishes provenance of the asset, and the identity token can be used in transactions (e.g., buying, selling, insuring, securing obligations) involving the asset stored in a blockchain, creating a full audit trail of the transactions.
To record a simple transaction in a blockchain, each party and asset involved with the transaction needs an account that is identified by a digital token. For example, when one person wants to transfer a car to another person, the current owner and next owner create accounts, and the current owner also creates an account that is uniquely identified by the car's vehicle identification number. The account for the car identifies the current owner. The current owner creates a transaction against the account for the car that indicates that the transaction is a transfer of ownership, indicates the public keys (i.e., identity tokens) of the current owner and the next owner, and indicates the identity token of the car. The transaction is signed by the private key of the current owner, and the transaction is evidence that the next owner is now the current owner.
To enable more complex transactions than bitcoin can support, some systems use “smart contracts.” A smart contract is computer code that implements transactions of a contract. The computer code may be executed in a secure platform (e.g., an Ethereum platform, which provides a virtual machine) that supports recording transactions in blockchains. In addition, the smart contract itself is recorded as a transaction in the blockchain using an identity token that is a hash (i.e., identity token) of the computer code so that the computer code that is executed can be authenticated. When deployed, a constructor of the smart contract executes, initializing the smart contract and its state. The state of a smart contract is stored persistently in the blockchain. When a transaction is recorded against a smart contract, a message is sent to the smart contract, and the computer code of the smart contract executes to implement the transaction (e.g., debit a certain amount from the balance of an account). The computer code ensures that all the terms of the contract are complied with before the transaction is recorded in the blockchain. For example, a smart contract may support the sale of an asset. The inputs to a smart contract to sell a car may be the identity tokens of the seller, the buyer, and the car and the sale price in U.S. dollars. The computer code ensures that the seller is the current owner of the car and that the buyer has sufficient funds in their account. The computer code then records a transaction that transfers the ownership of the car to the buyer and a transaction that transfers the sale price from the buyer's account to the seller's account. If the seller's account is in U.S. dollars and the buyer's account is in Canadian dollars, the computer code may retrieve a currency exchange rate, determine how many Canadian dollars the seller's account should be debited, and record the exchange rate. If either transaction is not successful, neither transaction is recorded.
When a message is sent to a smart contract to record a transaction, the message is sent to each node that maintains a replica of the corresponding blockchain. Each node executes the computer code of the smart contract to implement the transaction. For example, if 100 nodes each maintain a replica of a blockchain, then the computer code executes at each of the 100 nodes. When a node completes execution of the computer code, the result of the transaction is recorded in the blockchain. The nodes employ a consensus algorithm to decide which transactions to keep and which transactions to discard. Although the execution of the computer code at each node helps ensure the authenticity of the blockchain, it requires large amounts of computer resources to support such redundant execution of computer code.
A provenance and tokenization platform (“PTP”) system is provided that tracks provenance of target products such as grain and grain-based food and beverage products from farmer or seed supplier to mill or distillery or brewery to retailer and consumer. The PTP system may be employed to tokenize and track the provenance of any type of physical assets. In some embodiments, the PTP system provides a distributed ledger (e.g., blockchain) system that records transactions relating to target products. In the following, although the PTP system is described primarily in the context of a target product that is grain, the PTP system may be employed to track provenance any other types of products, components of products, and commodities in general. The participants of the PTP system include (for purposes of the descriptions that follow but without limitations) food supply chain participants such as seed bank operators, farmers, mill operators, brewers, distilleries, co-packers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers, restaurant operators, consumers, and so on. The PTP system provides smart contracts for each type of participant (e.g., farmers) for receiving transactions, validating transactions, and recording the transactions relating to the type of the participant in the distributed ledger. For example, a seed bank operator may record transactions representing seeds available for sale, sale of seeds to farmers, and so on. A seed transaction for available seeds provides details of the type of seed such as Sonora white wheat or Italian wheat, historical information about the seed (e.g., cultivated by native Americans in Arizona), and so on. The PTP system may provide applications that collect seed transactions for seed banks and provide a user interface that allows a user (e.g., farmer) to view information about the seeds and to place orders for seed. When a seed bank sells seed, the seed bank records a seed sale transaction indicating amount of seed, the purchaser, and so on. The seed sale transaction contains a reference to the seed bank transaction relating to the seed. When a farmer plants the seed, the farmer may record a crop transaction corresponding to the crop that includes a reference to the sale transaction. The farmer may also record crop growth transactions that contain information about the crop growth such as irrigation information, fertilization information, pesticide information, temperature information, crop rotation information, planting information, harvesting information, and so on. Each participant in the value chain records transactions relating to that participant's role in the food supply chain. The PTP system may be used with heritage grains, ancient grains, or any other type of grain whose provenance is to be tracked. The PTP system may be used to track the provenance of any type of tracked item such as a raw material, a product (manufactured or grown), a commodity (e.g., petroleum), and so on.
In some embodiments, the PTP system provides a consumer application that allows consumers to track the provenance of grain products that are available for purchase. For example, a mill operator may include a QR code on packages of grain (e.g., quinoa) that uniquely identifies the provenance of the grain. A consumer can use the consumer application (e.g., executing on a smart phone) to scan the QR code. The consumer application uses the QR code to identify a mill or distillery transaction of the mill or distillery operator relating to the grain, the mill, or the distillery. The mill transaction may reference a crop transaction which may reference a farmer transaction which may reference a seed bank transaction. The consumer application then displays the provenance information relating to the grain product.
In some embodiments, the PTP system may allocate tokens to consumers who purchase grain products from sellers such as from a box store retailer, an e-commerce retailer, a restaurant, and so on. Each consumer may have a digital wallet for storing the tokens. A consumer may use the tokens to purchase grain products. For example, if a consumer receives a token for the purchase of a pound or other unit of measure (e.g., kilogram for grain or barrel for whiskey), the consumer may pay for a pound of the grain using 10 tokens or may receive a 50% discount using five tokens. The PTP system may provide a retailer application (e.g., executing on a point-of-sale terminal) that interact with the consumer application to receive consumer information and record consumer sale transaction that also allocates tokens to the consumer. Alternatively, the packaging of the grain product may include another QR code, which may be inside the package. When a consumer purchases and opens the package, the consumer can use the consumer application to scan the QR code and record a consumer sale transaction that allocates tokens to the consumer. In addition, tokens for grains may be used to support digital securities offerings relating to the grain or distilled beverages made from that grain.
In some embodiments, the consumer application may support providing information on grains used in food items sold at a restaurant. For example, the menu at a restaurant may include a QR code for a food item that includes a grain. The consumer may use the consumer application to view provenance information for the grain. When the consumer purchases the food item, the consumer application may interact with a restaurant application to record a consumer purchase transaction in a manner similar to how a retailer would record a transaction as described above.
In some embodiments, the PTP system may provide a co-packer application that allows the co-packer to record transactions about the grains and other ingredients in a product. For example, if the product is pancake mix, the co-packer application may record one or more transactions identifying the ingredients. A transaction for a grain ingredient may reference a path of transactions that provide the provenance of the grain.
In some embodiments, the consumer application may provide a feedback option that allows consumers provide feedback to co-packers, mill operators, distillery operators, farmers, and so on relating to consumer demand for types of grain. For example, if many consumers express a desire to have pancake mix with a certain type of grain, that information may be used by participants in the supply chain to meet the demand. A co-packer may request a mill operator to provide that grain, and the mill operator may the request a farmer to provide that grain.
The PTP system may employ a permissioned distributed ledger. Each participant (except possibly consumers) may be required to provide proof that they are an authentic participant. For example, a mill operator may need to be authenticated by, for example, proof of ownership of the mill. Each participant may have a public/private key pair and sign transactions with their private key. Other participants can use the public key of the participant to authenticate transactions recorded by that participants. The PTP system allows fraudulent transactions to be identified. For example, if a mill operator attempts to record transactions for 10 tons of a certain grain but only purchased 5 tons of the grain, an analysis of the distributed ledger will identify this fraud. In addition, a mill operator smart contract may be used to identify seemingly fraudulent transactions and not record those transactions or send a notification to the operator of the distributed ledger of the fraudulent transaction. The operator of the distributed ledger may investigate and revoke the permission of the mill operator.
The computing systems (e.g., network nodes or collections of network nodes) on which the PTP system may be implemented may include a central processing unit, input devices, output devices (e.g., display devices and speakers), storage devices (e.g., memory and disk drives), network interfaces, graphics processing units, cellular radio link interfaces, global positioning system devices, and so on. The input devices may include keyboards, pointing devices, touch screens, gesture recognition devices (e.g., for air gestures), head and eye tracking devices, microphones for voice recognition, and so on. The computing systems may include desktop computers, laptops, tablets, e-readers, personal digital assistants, smartphones, gaming devices, servers, and so on. The computing systems may access computer-readable media that include computer-readable storage media and data transmission media. The computer-readable storage media are tangible storage means that do not include a transitory, propagating signal. Examples of computer-readable storage media include memory such as primary memory, cache memory, and secondary memory (e.g., DVD) and other storage. The computer-readable storage media may have recorded on them or may be encoded with computer-executable instructions or logic that implements the secure payment system. The data transmission media are used for transmitting data via transitory, propagating signals or carrier waves (e.g., electromagnetism) via a wired or wireless connection. The computing systems may include a secure cryptoprocessor as part of a central processing unit for generating and securely storing keys and for encrypting and decrypting data using the keys.
The PTP system may be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules and components, executed by one or more computers, processors, or other devices. Generally, program modules or components include routines, programs, objects, data structures, and so on that perform tasks or implement data types of the PTP system. Typically, the functionality of the program modules may be combined or distributed as desired in various examples. Aspects of the secure payment system may be implemented in hardware using, for example, an application-specific integrated circuit (“ASIC”) or field programmable gate array (“FPGA”).
The following paragraphs describe various embodiments of aspects of the PTP system. An implementation of the PTP system may employ any combination of the embodiments. The processing described below may be performed by a computing device with a processor that executes computer-executable instructions stored on a computer-readable storage medium that implements the PTP system.
In some embodiments, a method performed by one or more computing systems is provided for securely tracking provenance of tracked items. The method records in a blockchain a transaction relating to provenance of a tracked item, the transaction referencing a tracked item identification of the tracked item and a transaction relating to environmental factors relating to acquisition of the tracked item. The method, under control of each of a plurality of participants who perform processing relating to the tracked item, records in the blockchain a transaction relating to delivery of the tracked item to that participant. The transaction references a delivery identification and is signed using a private key of a public/private keypair of the participant who directs the delivery. The method records in the blockchain a transaction relating to processing relating to the tracked item that is performed by that participant. Transaction references a processing identification and is signed by a private key of a private/public key pair of that participant. The method receives from a consumer who purchases a product relating to the tracked item a product identification relating to the tracked item, identifies based on the product identification relating to the tracked item transactions relating to provenance of the tracked item, verifies the identified transactions using a public keys of participants, and displays to the consumer provenance information derived from the verified transactions. In some embodiments, the tracked item is a grain seed, and the processing actions include harvesting and delivery of the grain seed to a mill, milling and delivery of grain to a packer, and packing and delivery of the grain to a retailer. In some embodiments, a QR code is affixed to packaging of the product and the product identification is derived from the QR code. In some embodiments, multiple transactions relating to processing by a single participant identify constituents of product that includes the tracked item.
In some embodiments, a method performed by one or more computing systems is provided for securely tracking provenance of tracked items. The method records in a distributed ledger a transaction relating to the tracked item, the transaction identifying an originating participant and including a signature generated using a private key of a public/private keypair of the originating participant. The method records in the distributed ledger a transaction relating delivery of the tracked item to another participant in the blockchain. The transaction including a signature generated using a private key of a public/private keypair of the other participant. The method, under control of each of a plurality of participants who perform processing relating to the tracked item, record in the distributed ledgers a transaction relating to processing of a product that is derived from the tracked item that is performed by that participant. The transaction references a processing identification of the processing and an identification of the participant and includes a signature generated using a private key of a private/public key pair of that participant. The method records in the distributed ledger a transaction relating to delivery of the product that is derived from the tracked item to another participant. The transaction referencing a delivery identification and includes a signature generated using a private key of a public/private keypair of the participant who directs the delivery.
Although the subject matter has been described in language specific to structural features and/or acts, it is to be understood that the subject matter defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims. Accordingly, the invention is not limited except as by the appended claims.
This application claims the benefit of priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/128,286, filed Dec. 21, 2020, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63128286 | Dec 2020 | US |
