Digital Contracts in Blockchain Environments
AssigneeInveniam Capital Partners, Inc.
InventorPaul Snow
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Digital or “smart” contracts execute in a blockchain environment. Any entity (whether public or private) may specify a digital contract via a contract identifier in a blockchain. Because there may be many digital contracts offered as virtual services, the contract identifier uniquely identifies a particular digital contract offered by a virtual machine, vendor or supplier. The blockchain is thus not burdened with the programming code that is required to execute the digital contract. The blockchain need only include or specify the contract identifier (and perhaps one or more contractual parameters), thus greatly simplifying the blockchain and reducing its size (in bytes) and processing requirements.
Claims20
A method, comprising:
- receiving, by a server, a contract identifier that uniquely identifies a digital contract;
- identifying, by the server, an Internet protocol address by querying an electronic database that electronically associates network addresses to contract identifiers including the network address that is electronically associated with the contract identifier that uniquely identifies the digital contract;
- and
- sending, by the server, a service request to the network address that is electronically associated with the contract identifier, the service request requesting a cloud-based contractual service based on the digital contract.
A system, comprising:
- a hardware processor;
- and
- a memory device storing instructions that, when executed by the hardware processor, perform operations, the operations comprising:
- receiving a private blockchain specifying a contract identifier and a contractual parameter associated with a digital contract;
- identifying an Internet protocol address by querying an electronic database that electronically associates network addresses to contract identifiers including the network address that is electronically associated with the contract identifier specified by the private blockchain;
- sending a service request to the network address that is electronically associated with the contract identifier, the service request requesting an execution of the digital contract based on the contractual parameter specified by the private blockchain;
- and
- generating a data record in a blockchain data layer describing the service request sent to the network address requesting the execution of the digital contract based on the contractual parameter specified by the private blockchain.
A memory device storing instructions that when executed by a hardware processor perform operations, the operations comprising:
- receiving a private blockchain specifying a contract identifier that uniquely identifiers a digital contract and a contractual parameter associated with the digital contract;
- identifying an Internet protocol address by querying an electronic database that electronically associates network addresses to contract identifiers including the network address that is electronically associated with the contract identifier specified by the private blockchain;
- sending a service request to the network address that is electronically associated with the contract identifier, the service request requesting an execution of the digital contract based on the contractual parameter specified by the private blockchain;
- and
- generating a data record in a blockchain data layer describing the service request sent to the network address requesting the execution of the digital contract based on the contractual parameter specified by the private blockchain.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.