IOTA Is Mentioned in Latest Patent Application of British Biotech Giant Leica Biosystems

British Biotech Giant Leica Biosystems, recently published patent application titled “Immutable-Ledger-Based Workflow Management For Patient Samples” has mentioned IOTA blockchain.

A patent application filed by Leica Biosystems has been published, titled "Immutable-Ledger-Based Workflow Management For Patient Samples", mentioning #IOTA https://t.co/s3TyCA5PPV

Found by: The Librarian

— IOTA Archive – News (@_iotaarchive) June 23, 2021

New Leica’s patent concerns the workflow of the management of samples obtained during microscopic studies.

Leica notes that immutable ledgers are a promising tool used to manage digital assets. In particular, the use of a modification-resistant ledger implemented as a blockchain or directed acyclic graph (DAG) provides accurate and efficient asset tracking.

This technology can also be used with samples, which lately can be used to identify pathogens, make diagnoses, archiving, and other medical purposes.

The authors of the patent application note that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) which regulates individually identifiable health information assumes that health information related to patients’ specimens shouldn’t be public. A blockchain is a great tool for ensuring privacy specimen tracking.

IOTA Role

The workflow management system based on an immutable ledger for patient samples (for example, tissue samples) can use a directed acyclic graph (DAG), which is a hierarchy of nodes without any cycles.

It is designed to work with huge arrays of information. If the network size is small, DAGs are more vulnerable compared to classic blockchains. To add a transaction to a DAG, a user must approve two randomly chosen unconfirmed transactions. In such a system, native tokens can be used, in particular, an example of such use can be IOTA in Tangle.