WANdisco files for patent on blockchain technology solution

Live data specialist WANdisco announced a new patent filing to protect the use of its ‘Distributed Coordination Engine’ (DConE) - a patented Paxos-based consensus technology - to resolve issues associated with public blockchain technology on Wednesday.

The AIM-traded company said public blockchains had a number of “significant” limitations, which included the resource intensiveness required to maintain their integrity.

In order for permissioned blockchains to be commercially viable, WANdisco said such restraints needed to be overcome.

It claimed that through the use of DConE, its pending blockchain patent enabled effective permissioned blockchain transactions with an underlying algorithmic mechanism.

That mechanism enabled throughput to be achieved that was “orders of magnitude” higher than public blockchains.

“An algorithmic mechanism is designed for scalability and does not have a single point of failure, which is crucial for essential business applications,” the WANdisco board explained.

“It is also extremely secure because algorithmic consensus is very difficult to manipulate.

“As a result, building and maintaining blockchain-based business applications will be simpler and far more scalable than existing technologies.”

The company said DConE's blockchain application opened up the potential of blockchain technology to a “broad set” of commercial applications, including but not limited to supply chain, banking, healthcare, retail, pharmaceutical, insurance, and government.

“The company believes academic interest in this patent will be around the importance of algorithmically-based consensus, which enables a decentralised network to arrive at an agreement about the state of the blockchain.”