MasterCard’s Patent New Step in Patents’ Race

| Publish date: 10/15/2018
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The financial services giant, MasterCard’s application for a new patent was granted. The new patent describes a way to partition Blockchains so that the network can store multiple types of transactions and formats. This is not the first time that MasterCard has filed this kind of a patent, but it is a new step in the Blockchain patents’ race.

What is the Necessity of Partitioning a Blockchain?

Usually, one Blockchain is used to store one kind of data. For example, Bitcoin uses its Blockchain to store its data, while Ethereum uses another type of Blockchain to store its data.

However, if a company has disparate types of data, then it would need multiple Blockchains to store all the different types of data it has. This means that there would be a much higher cost incurred to create separate Blockchains for separate types of data.

The challenge is caused due to the degree of open access or permissions needed in a Blockchain. One extreme of the spectrum are open access Blockchains – such as Bitcoin and Ethereum – which anyone can access. On the other hand are permissioned Blockchains – those that only be accessed with the right permissions. The second type are the most common among the corporations, where security, identity protection and role definition are of prime importance.

According to MasterCard, the inflexibility of data formatting in current Blockchain designs restricts permissions on permissioned Blockchain. However, their new patent filing eliminates that issue, allowing users enhanced utility of permissions.

The New Blockchain

According to the new patent, MasterCard’s new Blockchain network will allows its blocks to receive data from multiple “subnets”. The patent proposes partitions called “subnets” which, while being internally consistent, would interact in single, wider system.

This subnet could have rules regarding the type of data stored in a transaction record, how the data is to be organized, the size of the data being stored, as well as the hashing algorithms being used in the coding.

Thus these subnets would be able to get information from different devices and also allow the addition of data of any type or size without having to stick to a standardized format of data.

MasterCard’s patent, however, stated that at this point in time, its proposed Blockchain system would only be able to support up to three such subnets.

This is not the first time that MasterCard has applied for this patent. The first time was in July of 2016. And this is not the first Blockchain patent that the financial giant has applied for. The company continues to show its interest in cutting edge technology.

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