Quant, the blockchain for finance pioneer, has secured a new patent, part of its ongoing mission to make distributed ledger technology simple, trusted and future-proof.

The patent, titled ‘Blockchain Communications and Ordering’, recognises that Quant has invented a unique method for chronologically ordering transactions from different blockchains.

Prior to Quant’s research and development, different ‘block times’ (the average time taken to generate a new block) across blockchains meant that finding a definitive transaction ordering method over multiple blockchains, that a consortium could agree on, was a disjointed and inconsistent process. This hindered firms from integrating multi-blockchain-based projects into existing systems or using more than one type of blockchain in their operations. The grant of Japanese patent 7273053 recognises that Quant has introduced a method to agree on a universal time zone for all blockchains, so that enterprises and smaller businesses can produce reliable, consensus-based records.

While Quant works with large institutions – it is a key vendor on a Bank of England project examining central bank digital currencies – it is also aiming to make blockchain more accessible to firms of all sizes via its low-code, SaaS platform, Overledger. Other elements of Overledger’s technology are also patent pending in various jurisdictions.

Helen Kemmitt, Quant’s general counsel, comments: “Patents underpin many of the world’s most important inventions. ‘Innovation’ is a word that’s overused in the finance and technology sectors – but a patent is an entirely objective seal that a firm is indeed a true innovator, which is why we’re unashamedly excited about this.”

Overledger platform allows customers to issue digital money and interoperable assets with just a few clicks, move them from one blockchain network to another, write new apps that will run on any network, create secure smart contracts that will execute on any blockchain, and use simple APIs to integrate with their existing systems.