US 12,229,610 B2
System and method of controlling lifecycles of ambient electromagnetic power harvesting chips
Mark R. Bales, Lee's Summit, MO (US); Lyle T. Bertz, Lee's Summit, MO (US); Lyle W. Paczkowski, Mission Hills, KS (US); and Harry W. Perlow, Palm Harbor, FL (US)
Assigned to T-Mobile Innovations LLC, Overland Park, KS (US)
Filed by T-Mobile Innovations LLC, Overland Park, KS (US)
Filed on Feb. 7, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/165,877.
Prior Publication US 2024/0265226 A1, Aug. 8, 2024
Int. Cl. G06K 19/07 (2006.01)
CPC G06K 19/0709 (2013.01) 11 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of controlling assignment and management of identities in ambient electromagnetic power harvesting (AEPH) chips, comprising:
allocating a plurality of unique AEPH identities by an AEPH management application executing on a computer system, wherein each unique identity comprises an identity of a product item and an instance identity;
storing the plurality of unique AEPH identities by the AEPH management application in a first immutable record in a datastore, wherein the unique AEPH identities are associated with an initial state;
providing the plurality of unique AEPH identities by the AEPH management application to an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of AEPH chips, whereby the OEM manufactures a plurality of AEPH chips and installs a different one of the plurality of unique AEPH identities in each of the AEPH chips;
attaching at least some of the AEPH chips to products responsive to the installation of the different one of the plurality of unique AEPH identities in each of the AEPH chips;
providing an application programming interface (API) by the AEPH management application;
receiving a plurality of requests via the API by the AEPH management application from a plurality of affiliated devices to update a state associated in the datastore with the unique AEPH identity identified in each request;
authorizing by the AEPH management application the requests to update the state associated with the unique AEPH identity identified in each request in the datastore by adding a plurality of additional immutable records into the datastore;
determining by the AEPH management application that a number of immutable records in the datastore has reached a predefined threshold number;
based on the determination that the number of immutable records in the datastore has reached the predefined threshold number, generating a terminal block for the datastore;
marking the datastore read-only by the AEPH management application by appending the terminal block to an end of the immutable records, wherein the plurality of immutable records are stored in a blockchain in the datastore, wherein the datastore is marked read-only by the AEPH management application by appending the terminal block to the end of the immutable records, and wherein the presence of the terminal block prevents further alteration to the datastore;
after marking the datastore read-only, receiving a request via the API by the AEPH management application from an affiliated device to update a state associated with a unique AEPH identity; and
sending a request rejection by the AEPH management application to the affiliated device that sent the request to update the state associated with the unique AEPH identity after the datastore was marked read-only.