Amazon, a kingmaker of e-commerce and shipping, has patented a DLT (distributed ledger-based) system for verifying the authenticity of customer goods. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office confirmed the Seattle tech giant’s almost-three-year-old “Distributed ledger certification” filing on Tuesday. The patent details utilizing DLT to introduce “digital trust from the first mile of an item’s supply chain” to the last.

Amazon’s system gathers data from distributors, manufacturers, and shippers on an “open framework” that develops a product provenance over information silos. This information could be neatly packaged for the customer.

In a claim that spread unusually philosophical for dry patent filings, Amazon jeered the “proliferation” of “systems and databases that can usually lack transparency, coherency, referential integrity or security” – all potential eroders of trust. These “patchwork” technologies also desert to embrace the global supply chain, Amazon wrote. Amazon is developing ever more important to that chain: Its couriers delivered 3.5 billion packages last year, 46% of the total.

Against those current tech deficiencies, Amazon argued that distributed systems give a compelling solution. It stated DLT could preserve data from alteration, eliminate single points of failure, and dodge the managerial problems of centralized authority, such as bottlenecks. Amazon stated in the patent that Hyperledger could be one form of DLT used. Patent filings do not certainly mean that a company is utilizing technology. Also, read – Amazon is Seeking a Specialist for Its Crypto Ambition

Earning trust

“Trust is earned,” recorded Amazon, whose gargantuan e-marketplace is awash in counterfeits, according to the U.S. government. “Once trust is lost, it can often be difficult to regain.”

Last year, Amazon launched a counterfeit detection initiative named “Project Zero” that strives to intercept phony goods. Amazon officials stated the Wall Street Journal in 2018; the company would spend billions of dollars combating fakes.

Amazon Patents Blockchain-Based Product Authenticator https://t.co/cNRPXcvqqN via @coindesk

— Anoop Nannra (@anannra) May 30, 2020

 

U.S. lawmakers remain cautious of Amazon’s counterfeit product problem. The buying public is definitely more trusting. Approximately 39% of respondents to a Morning Consult poll stated they trusted Amazon “a lot.” Only the United States Postal Service, which delivers 30% of Amazon’s packages, ranked higher.