Patent Issued for ACH authorization validation using public blockchains (USPTO 11188907): United Services Automobile Association

2021 DEC 17 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Bolt, Dorothy Jean (San Antonio, TX, US), Doddato, Joseph Matthew (Boerne, TX, US), Hertz, Michael L. (San Antonio, TX, US), Vijayvergia, Gunjan (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on August 22, 2016, was published online on November 30, 2021, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11188907 is assigned to United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Increasingly, commerce is conducted electronically. The Automated Clearing House (ACH) network supports the electronic movement of money and payment-related data. In some examples, the ACH network provides a safe, secure, electronic network for direct consumer, business, and government payments, annually facilitating billions of ACH-based transactions (e.g., debit transactions, direct deposit transactions).

“Disputes regarding ACH transactions between entities (e.g., a bank disputing payment to a commercial enterprise on behalf of a customer) is a manual and slow process. For example, ACH disputes can include the receiving entity (e.g., a bank) sending a request to an originating entity (e.g., a commercial enterprise) for a copy of the original authorization of the disputed transaction to prove the transaction was properly authorized by the customer. Inefficiencies abound in this dispute resolution process due to, for example, each entity holding their own authorization data in a private manner, requiring manual communication between institutions.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Implementations of the present disclosure are generally directed to validating Automated Clearing House (ACH) authorizations using blockchains. More particularly, implementations of the present disclosure are directed to retrieving secure ACH authorization data from a blockchain, in which there is a high level of confidence that the blockchain has not been tampered with, to confirm whether a transaction was authorized. In accordance with implementations of the present disclosure, an entity (e.g., a commercial enterprise) can externally publish ACH authorization data in a secure manner, enabling other entities (e.g., a bank) access to ACH authorization data associated with their accounts at any time, in a self-service manner. That is, implementations of the present disclosure enable an entity requiring ACH authorization data to access the ACH authorization data at any time in a self-service type transaction (e.g., without requesting the ACH authorization data from the commercial enterprise).

“In general, innovative aspects of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include actions of: obtaining, by at least one processor, a distributed blockchain encoding automated clearing house (ACH) authorization data associated with one or more prior transactions to provide a local copy of the distributed blockchain; receiving, by the at least one processor, ACH authorization data associated with a first transaction, the ACH authorization data associated with the first transaction having been broadcast to multiple nodes from a first computing device; validating, by the at least one processor, the ACH authorization data associated with the first transaction to obtain validation information corresponding to the first ACH authorization data associated with the first transaction; updating the local copy of the distributed blockchain with the validation information; and broadcasting the validation information to the multiple nodes Other implementations of this aspect include corresponding systems, apparatus, and computer programs, configured to perform the actions of the methods, encoded on computer storage devices.

“These and other implementations can each optionally include one or more of the following features. For example, in some implementations, obtaining the distributed blockchain includes obtaining, from at least one node, a copy of the distributed blockchain.

“In some implementations, obtaining the distributed blockchain includes encoding, by the processor, at least a portion of the authorization data associated with at least one prior transactions into the distributed blockchain.

“In some implementations, the ACH authorization data associated with the first transaction includes at least one of the account holder name, the routing/transit number of the account, a time stamp of when the transaction occurred, a time stamp of when the account was generated, and a time stamp of when the authorization was captured.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method executed by at least one processor, the method comprising: receiving, by the at least one processor, transaction dispute data relating to a first automated clearing house (ACH) transaction, wherein the transaction dispute data indicates that an entity disputes authorization of the first ACH transaction; requesting from a node of a plurality of nodes of a distributed blockchain, by the at least one processor, a plurality of blocks of the distributed blockchain comprising a plurality of automated clearing house (ACH) authorization data associated with one or more prior transactions to obtain a local copy of the distributed blockchain to initiate a dispute resolution process based on the transaction dispute data, wherein the request is based on the first ACH transaction and wherein the one or more prior transactions comprise the first ACH transaction; retrieving, by the at least one processor, first ACH authorization data associated with the first ACH transaction from the plurality of blocks of the distributed blockchain, wherein the first ACH authorization data was broadcast to the plurality of nodes of the distributed blockchain from a first computing device, wherein the first ACH authorization data associated with the first ACH transaction is encrypted based on a public-private key pair comprising a private key associated with the first computing device and a public key associated with a second computing device, and wherein the first ACH authorization data associated with the first ACH transaction includes a digital signature and index/trace information associated with the first ACH transaction; validating, by the at least one processor, the first ACH authorization data to generate validation information by generating a digest value corresponding to the first ACH authorization data, generating a challenge value using the digest value corresponding to the first ACH authorization data, applying a proof of work protocol to the digest value to obtain a proof of work value using the challenge value, and combining the challenge value with the proof of work value to provide a predefined requirement of the proof of work protocol, wherein the proof of work value satisfies the predefined requirement of the proof of work protocol, wherein generating the digest value comprises applying a hash function to the first ACH authorization data and one or more blocks of the local blockchain; verifying, by the at least one processor, the first ACH transaction based on the validation information from the first ACH authorization data to provide an authentication of the first ACH transaction; after the validation of the first ACH transaction, updating the local copy of the distributed blockchain with the validation information; and after the validation of the first ACH transaction, broadcasting the validation information to the plurality of nodes.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein requesting the plurality of blocks of the distributed blockchain comprises obtaining a copy of the distributed blockchain.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein requesting the plurality of blocks of the distributed blockchain comprises requesting one or more prior transactions broadcast to the distributed blockchain by the first computing device.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein the index/trace information included in the first ACH authorization data comprises one or more of an account holder name, a routing/transit number of an account, a time stamp of when the first ACH transaction occurred, a time stamp of when the account was generated, and a time stamp of when the authorization data was generated.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein the recited method steps are performed using multitasking or parallel processing.

“6. A system comprising: a computer-readable data storage device; and at least one processor configured to interact with the computer-readable data storage device, the at least one processor being further configured to execute computer-readable instructions to perform operations comprising: receiving, by the at least one processor, a transaction dispute relating to a first transaction, wherein the transaction dispute indicates that an entity disputes authorization of the first transaction; obtaining from a node of a plurality of nodes of a distributed blockchain system, by the at least one processor, a local copy of a distributed blockchain that comprises automated clearing house (ACH) authorization data associated with one or more prior transactions; retrieving, by the at least one processor, a first ACH authorization of the ACH authorization data associated with the first transaction from the local copy of the distributed blockchain to initiate a dispute resolution process based on the transaction dispute, wherein the first ACH authorization is associated with the first transaction and the first ACH authorization was broadcast to the plurality of nodes of the distributed blockchain from a first computing device, wherein the first ACH authorization of the ACH authorization data associated with the first transaction is encrypted based on a public-private key pair comprising a private key associated with the first computing device and a public key associated with a second computing device, and wherein the ACH authorization data associated with the first transaction includes a digital signature and index/trace information associated with the first transaction; validating, by the at least one processor, the first ACH authorization to generate validation information by generating a digest value corresponding to the ACH authorization data, generating a challenge value using the digest value corresponding to the ACH authorization data, applying a proof of work protocol to the digest value to obtain a proof of work value using the challenge value, and combining the challenge value with the proof of work value to provide a predefined requirement of the proof of work protocol, wherein the proof of work value satisfies the predefined requirement of the proof of work protocol, wherein generating the digest value comprises applying a hash function to the ACH authorization data and one or more blocks of the local blockchain; verifying, by the at least one processor, the first transaction based on the validation information from the first ACH authorization to provide an authentication of the first transaction; after the verification of the first transaction, updating the local copy of the distributed blockchain with the validation information; and after the verification of the first transaction, broadcasting the validation information to the plurality of nodes.

“7. The system of claim 6, wherein obtaining the local copy of the distributed blockchain comprises obtaining new blocks of the distributed blockchain from one or more nodes in the plurality of nodes.

“8. The system of claim 6, wherein obtaining the local copy of the distributed blockchain comprises requesting, by the processor, one or more prior transactions broadcast to the distributed blockchain by the first computing device.

“9. The system of claim 6, wherein the index/trace information included in the ACH authorization data associated with the first transaction comprises one or more of an account holder name, a routing/transit number of an account, a time stamp of when the first transaction occurred, a time stamp of when the account was generated, and a time stamp of when the first ACH authorization was issued.

“10. The system of claim 6, wherein the operations are performed using multitasking or parallel processing.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

URL and more information on this patent, see: Bolt, Dorothy Jean. ACH authorization validation using public blockchains. U.S. Patent Number 11188907, filed August 22, 2016, and published online on November 30, 2021. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11188907.PN.&OS=PN/11188907RS=PN/11188907

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