The Chinese multinational PC company Lenovo filed a patent with the USPTO for a system allowing " verify the integrity of physical documents "using a" security Blockchain . "
The patent application was submitted in August 2016, but was published late last week on February 15th.
The use of digital signatures encoded in documents, as opposed to physical signatures printed with physical ink, gives assurance that the document has not been modified after the signature.
The brief summary of the patent explains that a processor will identify a " symbol of integrity " in the document, converting it to " map". integrity ", then compare the map to the physical document to ensure the integrity of the document.
The Secur rity Blockchain, writes Lenovo, would ensure " that they have the actual authentic physical document even though multiple paper copies exist and several people have made entries into the modification chain . " If several, fake copies of a physical document, they would appear " appear as orphan blocks in the chain ."
In December 2017, the Swiss banking giant UBS filed a similar patent with the USPTO for a Blockchain Although the patent application of the Chinese company Lenovo has not been submitted recently , its online publication comes as China is in the midst of a general crackdown against all that is crypto in the country. China banned all exchanges of foreign cryptocurrencies in early February, following the ban on initials of coins in September 2017.
However, even with the encryption bans in place, Chinese companies have stopped examining cryptography. On February 7, Chinese payment service provider LianLian partnered with RippleNet to facilitate faster and cheaper cross-border payments in Europe, the United States and China.