Martor segregat și posibilitatea încălcării brevetelor

Martor segregat și posibilitatea încălcării brevetelor

În seara târzie de 1 iunie, Bitcoin.com a primit un e-mail de la o sursă anonimă care a cercetat posibile încălcări ale brevetelor asociate protocolului Segregated Witness (Segwit). Potrivit cercetătorului, Segwit poate fi în pericol încălcând două brevete specifice depuse la Oficiul pentru Brevete și Mărci din SUA (USPTO).

Segwit is a protocol that has been discussed quite a bit over the last year as a solution to bitcoin malleability issues and the possibility the implementation will improve transaction throughput. The concept relocates witness inputs created by transaction hash and separates the data into its own tree. The Segwit soft fork has been debated relentlessly within the bitcoin community as the protocol has not yet found sufficient support to activate the code.

The patent researcher who contacted our team has been investigating Segwit’s possible relationship with similar patents filed across the globe. It seems during the investigation; two USPTO patents were found that Segwit protocol may infringe upon.

The first patent discovered was US 8261082  a “Self-signing electronic documents” which was published in 2012. According to our source, Claim 11 of US 8261082 appears to be relevant to Segwit. Claim 11 of the document reads;

“A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving a signed first electronic document, the first electronic document including digital signature rights information, a digital signature module and a digital signature generated by the digital signature module, the digital signature module, which when loaded performs digital signature operations; accessing, by one or more computers, the first electronic document in a user application; validating the digital signature in the first electronic document using the digital signature module in the user application; accessing a second electronic document, the second electronic document being a document other than the first electronic document, the second electronic document being identified by the digital signature rights information in the first electronic document; and performing digital signature operations on the second electronic document.”

The patent investigator who contacted us states, “if we consider the two parts of a message to be the first and second electronic document, then all of the features of the claim would be present in Segwit.”