The request was announced by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday. In request Apple describes a program that can confirm timestamps by combining a blockchain and public key infrastructure (PKI).
Certain information is "bound" to a separate transaction on the blockchain setting the state of the data at a particular point in time. This information can be changed by creating additional transactions.
The program generates a block containing a timestamp and each subsequent block is added to it as the miners confirm the completed transactions. This is a part of
system which Apple calls “multi-check architecture”: the system confirms the timestamp after the block is generated but before it is added to the chain.
In the request Apple described three possible methods for creating timestamps and one of them involves the use of a blockchain. Its advantage is decentralization and security. As stated in the document, if one of the parties tries to change any previous node in the chain, all subsequent blocks will become incorrect: “Each participant will see that this broken chain is inconsistent with his/her own copy of the blockchain. So broken chain will not be recognized by the nodes.”
Network users support initiatives related to the blockchain and believe that the technology needs to be expanded beyond the limits of cryptocurrency use:
It's nice to see more uses of the blockchain, in addition to cryptocurrency. Recently Cisco filed a patent application for a blockchain to identify IoT devices, now Apple - to confirm timestamps.
