Amazon Patents Blockchain-Based Product Authenticator

Amazon, a kingmaker of e-commerce and shipping, has patented a distributed ledger-based (DLT) system for proving the authenticity of consumer goods. The patent describes using DLT to infuse “digital trust from the first mile of an item’s supply chain” to the last.

In a brief that waxed unusually philosophical for dry patent filings, Amazon derided the “proliferation” of “systems and databases that can often lack transparency, coherency, referential integrity or security” – all potential eroders of trust. Amazon said in the patent that Hyperledger could be one form of DLT used.

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