Apple has recently submitted a new patent application that uses Blockchain within a prospective system for creating and verifying timestamps.
Based on the public application to US Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday where Blockchain technology was used to certify timestamps as a program combined with Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) tools.
Apple's application describes three possible methods for establishing timestamps, with one of these scenarios centering on a Blockchain platform. There is a use case in question where data stored involves tying a piece of information to a particular transaction on a Blockchain, establishing the state of that data at a particular point in time.
The program would generate a block containing a timestamp, with every subsequent block being added as miners verify each transaction conducted on the chain. This system is part of what Apple is calling a "multi-check architecture," meaning that another system would confirm the timestamp after the block is generated but before it is added to the chain.
Like other established institutions, Apple believes in the power of Blockchain technology and its benefits.
Apple has seen the benefits of how the transactions are verified and approved by consensus among participants in the network, making fraud more difficult. The technology operates on a distributed rather than centralized platform, with each participant having access to exactly the same ledger records, allowing participants to enter or leave at will and providing resilience against attacks.
According to the application, using a decentralized ledger to store timestamps has two main benefits - it can propel the time to maintain permanent and can have a protected from corruption if a single node is compromised by malicious actors.