Patent ID: 9436923
Filing Date: 2016-09-06
CPC Classification: G06Q,H04L

Claim Text:
1. A computer-implemented method of operating a computer server, comprising: implementing a distributed consensus network comprised of computing devices that verify waiting transaction records for addition into a block chain comprised of a sequence of blocks that are cryptographically protected from tampering; establishing, by a computer server system, a connection with the distributed consensus network maintaining a cryptographically verifiable ledger utilizing a proof-of-work process to enforce a chronological order amongst logistic transaction records in the cryptographically verifiable ledger and to protect neutrality of the distributed consensus network, wherein the cryptographically verifiable ledger is represented by the sequence of blocks, each block containing one or more transaction records, and each subsequent block contains a hash value generated by processing content in a previous block via a hash function; receiving, by the computer server system, a request to unitize an item from at least an existing cryptographic address to a fresh cryptographic address, wherein the fresh cryptographic address identifiable via a public key that corresponds to a private key for verifying ownership of the fresh cryptographic address and wherein a first record in the distributed consensus network is associated with the existing cryptographic address and specifies an original stock keeping unit (SKU) associated with the item and the request to unitize designates a new SKU; authenticating, by the computer server system, the request to unitize by verifying that the request to unitize includes a cryptographic signature of the private key; responsive to authenticating the request to unitize, publishing, by the computer server system, a cryptographically verifiable record associating the original SKU at the existing cryptographic address to the new SKU at the fresh cryptographic address in the cryptographically verifiable ledger maintained by the distributed consensus network; and computing a directed acyclic graph from cryptographically verifiable records, associated with the fresh cryptographic address or the existing cryptographic address, in the cryptographically verifiable ledger representing supply and/or distribution provenance of the item; and generating an audit trail of provenance information related to the new SKU based on the directed acyclic graph.