Ripple Awarded Patent (‘Verifying Sequence of Instructions of Software’)

Californian FinTech firm Ripple Labs has been awarded a patent in the U.S. for an invention by Stefan Thomas (currently, CEO of Coil) and Evan Schwartz (co-inventor of the Interledger Protocol; currently a board member at Coil).

The application (No. 15/873,737) for this patent (No. 10,789,068), which has the title “System and method for verifying sequence of instructions of software”, was filed by Thomas and Schwartz on 17 January 2018; this was a continuation of an application (No. 14/733,232) the two former Ripple engineers filed on 8 June 2015. This patent was awarded by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce

Here is the abstract:




“In a method for executing software, a result produced from an execution of a copy of the software by a corresponding platform can be received from each of a plurality of platforms.

“A number of results of execution of the software can be determined. The extent to which the results match can be compared to a threshold.

“The matching results can be accepted as an agreed-upon output of the software when the extent to which the results match is equal to or greater than the threshold.

“The software can include an implementation of at least a portion of an act associated with an agreement between at least two entities.”