Nasdaq Seeks to Patent Blockchain-based Data Matching System

The global exchange operator Nasdaq Inc. is seeking to patent a blockchain-based data matching system.

Filed

in February by its market technology division, the application was released by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on August 10, with the full submission detailing how the exchange is looking to protect a distributed system that stores and shares transactional data.

Invented by Johan Toll and Fredrik Sjöblom, both of whom work for the post-trade market technology based in Stockholm, Sweden, the patent application details their process for using a blockchain to pair transaction requests, specifically, data of trades and clearing positions, according to a spokesperson from Nasdaq. The data matching would then be timestamped and stored in the ledger, in a similar way that bitcoin transactions are kept on its underlying blockchain.

But while interesting on its own, the filing comes only several days after Nasdaq Inc was revealed to have made a similar filing - only this time the application was submitted by the company's market technology unit, which accounts for 12 percent of its net revenue in the second quarter of 2017.

As reported by CoinDesk, Nasdaq Inc is also seeking to patent a distributed platform that enables a user to submit a time-sensitive document to a blockchain, whereby each modification would be recorded and updated on a distributed ledger.

Stepping back, the filings are also taking place during what has been a boom in blockchain patent applications, with CoinDesk data revealing that the rate of submissions has nearly doubled already in 2017.

Correction: This article has been updated to clarify specifics of the patent and to correct information regarding the entity that filed the application.

Nasdaq image via Shutterstock