Telecoms Giant AT&T Seeks Patent for Blockchain-Enabled Social Media ‘Mapping’ System

American telecoms giant AT&T is seeking a patent for a blockchain-based social media history “map.” The patent application was published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Dec. 13.

AT&T’s patent application describes a blockchain-powered system that may include a transaction history controller to store subscribers’ data, which may be used for various purposes. The file outlines a number of particular cases, such as creating and sharing information, ideas, and career interests through virtual communities and networks.

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Broadly speaking, by deploying the system users could purportedly track “micro-culture transactions,” like tracing current trends at a particular time or place, or behavior of their friends. That ability, per the patent application, “may have enormous value in e-commerce, marketing, and targeted advertising.” The document further states:

“The social media history map platforms described herein may take advantage of the immutable and permanent nature of blockchain records to store, and provide access to, data representing online transactions that occur on multiple social media applications.”

Per the filing, content creators would keep ownership of their data on the “mapping” platform:

“However, instead of passing ownership of blocks or data between users, a social media account owner maintains primary ownership of his or her online transaction data. What passes from the social media account owner to other users of the social media history map service, such as followers of the social media account owner, is a notion of elevated visibility rights.”

In November, the USPTO awarded printing and digital copying appliances manufacturer Xerox a patent for a blockchain-driven auditing system for electronic files. The technology offered by Xerox can supposedly detect whether a file has been altered and tracks the history of changes to documents. Owing to the decentralized verification mechanism, the system thus becomes resistant to tampering, the filing states.

Also that month, financial services giant American Express (Amex) filed a patent for a blockchain-based system to capture and transmit the image of a receipt. The filing describes how the system lets a user with a mobile device capture the image of a receipt. The system then, via “optical character recognition,” deciphers the image and matches it with “related records,” namely transaction history.