Major Pharma Firm Merck Obtains A US Blockchain Patent

One of the world’s oldest and biggest operating pharmaceutical companies-MERCK, has officially won a blockchain patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office according to the reports from the German Cointelegraph that reached our blockchain news today.

Per the Merck reports, the German multinational company developed a system that will combine the usage of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the blockchain technology in order to verify and establish the authenticity of the physical objects:

 “The new technology uses machine learning to link physical objects to a blockchain through their own unique identifiers or ‘fingerprints‘.”

Merck pointed out that in the patent, the entire blockchain technology is described and how it can be used to identify unique features of any physical objects and the ‘’fingerprint’’ here including DNA, image patterns and chemical signatures.

They pharma company also claims that the technology that is described in the patent will help increase the security of the supply chain systems and will eliminate their possible tampering and counterfeit. The technology is developed in Merck’s new innovation center.

Merck noted that at least 50 percent of the pharmaceutical companies are purchased on unregistered websites and illegal places such as the darknet and the data were verified by the World Health Organization.

The Russian Ministry of Education and Science also introduced a new blockchain-based platform that will aim to track natural diamonds across the supply chain directly to the final owner.

Other health-based companies such as Aetna insurance company, partnered with IBM build an improved blockchain network that will address the insurance processes in the entire healthcare industry.