Blockchain systems and methods for confirming presence

• US 10,531,230 B2
• Filed: 12/27/2018
• Issued: 01/07/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 09/16/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ivani, LLC
• Original Assignee: Ivani, LLC
• Inventors: Wootton, Matthew, Dieseldorff, Boris, McKinney, Justin
• Primary Examiner(s): Heiber, Shantell L
• Application Number:
  US16/234,098
• Publication Number:
  US 20190166459A1
• Time in Patent Office: 376 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G01V 1/001 Acoustic presence detection
• CPC Class Codes: G01V 3/12 operating with electromagnetic waves operating with millimetre waves G01V8/005
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 11/221 using ferroelectric capacitors
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 11/2257 Word-line or row circuits
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 11/2259 Cell access
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 11/2273 Reading or sensing circuits or methods
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 11/2293 Timing circuits or methods
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 11/2297 Power supply circuits
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/27 for locating or positioning the transmitter
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/318 Received signal strength
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/373 Predicting channel quality or other radio frequency [RF] parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0018 based on latency requirement
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/006 Quality of the received signal, e.g. BER, SNR, water filling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/131 Protocols for games, networked simulations or virtual reality
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/30 : Services specially adapted for particular environments, situations or purposes
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/33 : for indoor environments, e.g. buildings
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/50 : Service provisioning or reconfiguring
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 : Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/283 : Power depending on the position of the mobile
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 : Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

Systems and methods for confirming the presence of a person or asset for a given purpose, and recording this information in a distributed ledger. The distributed ledger records and confirms presence indicia in connection with a transaction said facilitates remote and/or automated signatures. The systems and methods detect the presence of one or more humans and/or computing devices at a specific location at the time of a transaction, and contemporaneously recording information concerning the transaction in a distributed ledger. Presence can be determined using network presence sensing (NPS), other types of sensors, or the combination of NPS with other sensors.

Claims

1. A method for documenting the presence of a human and computing device at a particular place and time comprising:

providing a first set of one or more sensors disposed at a location and adapted to detect the presence of a human at said location;

providing a second set of one or more sensors disposed at said location and adapted to detect the presence of a computing device at said location;

providing a distributed ledger adapted to record timestamped records;

detecting, using said first set of one or more sensors, a human present at said location;

detecting, using said second set of one or more sensors, a computing device at said location;

posting to said distributed ledger a timestamped record indicating said detected presence of said human at said location and said detected presence of said computing device at said location

wherein said posted timestamped record comprises data for confirming a transaction between a plurality of parties; and

wherein said posted timestamped record is accessible to each party in said plurality of parties.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said first set of one or more sensors comprises a network presence sensing system.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one sensor in said first set of one or more sensors comprises a motion sensor.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said motion sensor is selected from the group consisting of:

a PIR sensor, an ultrasound sensor, and a hybrid system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one sensor in said first set of one or more sensors is selected from the group consisting of:

a beam break sensor, a camera, and a weight plate.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one sensor in said first set of one or more sensors is selected from the group consisting of:

a transceiver, a camera, and a microphone.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein said at least one sensor comprises a transceiver adapted for wireless communicates using radio waves.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said posted timestamped record includes additional information.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein said additional information is in a raw or a processed form.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein said additional information includes one or more of the group consisting of:

video information;

audio information;

a state of an access point to said location;

a security system status;

a weight sensor status;

current weather;

predicted weather;

photographs; and

light sensor information.

11. The method of claim 1, where said transaction is selected from the group consisting of:

a package delivery, reaching a geocached item, and an event in an augmented reality game.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein said transaction comprises a sequence of subtransactions over time.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

amending said posted timestamped record with data about each subtransaction in said sequence.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising, for each subtransaction in said sequence:

detecting at the time of said each subtransaction, using said first set of one or more sensors, a human present at said location;

detecting at the time of said each subtransaction, using said second set of one or more sensors, a computing device at said location;

posting to said distributed ledger a timestamped record of said detected presence of said human at said location at said time of said each subtransaction and said detected presence of said computing device at said location at said time of said each subtransaction.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein said transaction comprises tender of a service.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein said service is selected from the group consisting of:

handyman work, lawn services, babysitting, transportation, ridesharing, working from home, and employee timekeeping.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein said posted timestamped record comprises asymmetrically encrypted data.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein said posted timestamped record further comprises real-world metrics.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

detecting the presence of one or more objects at said location at the time of said transaction;

in said posting, said timestamped record including real-world metrics, about said detected one or more objects.

20. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether at least one precondition to said transaction is met;

wherein said posting step is performed only if, in said determining step, said at least one precondition is determined as being met.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein said determining further comprises determining whether said at least one precondition is met based on one or more of the group consisting of:

current weather, predicted weather, temperature, time of day, and sensing one or more objects at a sublocation at said location.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

if said at least one precondition is determined not to be met in said determining step, modifying said at least one precondition such that said at least one precondition is met.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein said at least one precondition comprises a plurality of sets of subconditions;

and

said determining further comprises determining whether, said at least one precondition is met based on whether at least one of said sets of subconditions in said plurality of sets of subconditions is determined to be met.

24. The method of claim 20, wherein said at least one precondition comprises remotely providing a signature.

25. The method of claim 20, wherein said at least one precondition comprises remotely providing access to a sublocation at said location.

26. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting anomalies at said location at the time of said transaction;

wherein said posted timestamped record further comprises an indication of said anomalies detected at said time.

27. The method of claim 1, wherein said confirmation data is used as a precondition to grant physical or electronic access to protected content.

28. The method of claim 1, where said confirmation data is used to generate an invoice.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein said posted timestamped record is used to generate said invoice.