Bank of America Filed 10 New Cryptocurrency Patent Applications
10 new patent publications filed by Bank of America have been published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) last week. The bank’s patent applications were filed in June, last year.
The USPTO has published 10 patent applications filed by Bank of America in relation to cryptocurrencies. The original filing was done in June 2014 and the 10 new applications add to an existing filing for a wire transfer system involving cryptocurrencies by Bank of America, published in September.
While the bank’s official plans or endeavors with cryptocurrencies are still unknown, the following patents filed by Bank of America provides clues that the bank may be looking at developing a full-fledged cryptocurrency system that coexists with fiat currency. The filed patent titles are:
- Cryptocurrency Offline Vault Storage System.
- Cryptocurrency Transformation System.
- Cryptocurrency Transaction Validation System.
- Cryptocurrency Electronic Payment System.
- Cryptocurrency Suspicious User Alert System.
- Cryptocurrency Aggregation System.
- Cryptocurrency Online Vault Storage System.
- Cryptocurrency Transaction Payment System and,
- Cryptocurrency Real-Time Conversion System.
Interestingly, the patents also mention ‘bitcoin’ a total of 17 times in all patent filings, along with other alt currencies such as Litecoins, Dogecoins, Peercoins and more. The mentions were made as fleeting references to cryptocurrencies.
In total, Bank of America has now filed 11 patent applications pertaining to cryptocurrencies. The number includes an earlier patent published in September by the USPTO that proposed for a system in which funds are transferred between accounts using ‘cryptocurrency technology’. The patent, however, did not contain any references to “blockchain” nor “block chain”.
Bank of America also joined New York-based startup R3’s blockchain consortium this year to develop and experiment with blockchain technology solutions in collaboration with 41 other banks, globally.
In a year with plenty of blockchain technology based consortiums, startups and endeavors by existing tech giants making headlines, there haven’t been many cryptocurrency or blockchain-related patents published this year, in comparison to the investment going into the industry. 2016 is likely to be the year wherein more patents that are likely to be filed this year will be revealed. So too will further activity and developments from the bitcoin-related industry of the present.
Bank of America representatives weren’t immediately available for a comment at the time of publication.
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