Yep. There are actually two BOA patent apps pending. Quick gripe: I tweeted the link to twobitidiot earlier (see:
https://twitter.com/MrFelt_/status/645978092515659776), and Coindesk, like they've done several times with my posts here and elsewhere RE: GAW, etc., writes up an article w/o any attribution whatsoever. Come on, guys (and gals), at least give a citation if you're going to steal your news.
I thought this patent app was interesting (from
Lenovo, they also have several), "BIOMETRIC ACCOUNT CARD":
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=46&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=bitcoin&OS=bitcoin&RS=bitcoinIt mentions bitcoin 9 times (only 8 in the following paragraphs):
[0030] In the example of FIG. 2, the information 208 may pertain to a SUA, a controlled-use account, controlled use accounts, digital currency or other type of information. As an example of digital currency, consider a cryptocurrency such as the Bitcoin currency. As an example, a cryptocurrency unit such as, for example, a bitcoin unit (BTC) may be a single-use account as, according to various standards, ownership may be transferred once (e.g., for a payor/payee transaction). As an example, while a BTC is mentioned, multiples of a BTC and fractions of a BTC may be considered a "unit" of digital currency (e.g., a bitcointon, a santoshi, etc.) the ownership of which may be transferred as a single-use account.
[0031] As an example, a digital currency transaction may occur as a payment sent or a payment received via circuitry. In such an example, a transaction may include transferring ownership of a digital currency unit from one address to another (e.g., consider Bitcoin addresses) and a transactions may be confirmed via network communications using a proof-of-work system (e.g., "mining"), in which blocks of transactions are appended to a shared public record (e.g., a block chain). For example, a transaction may include solving via circuitry a cryptographic problem before being able to append a block, which may be of an adjusted difficulty to meet a desired block creation rate.
[0032] The Bitcoin digital currency scheme can use an Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) implementation of public-key cryptography, in which pairs of cryptographic keys, one public and one private, are generated; where a collection of keys may be referred to as a wallet. A Bitcoin digital currency transaction may transfer ownership of a digital currency unit (or units) to a new address (e.g., to that of a payee), which may be an alphanumeric string derived from public keys by application of a hash function and encoding. In such a scheme, corresponding private keys can act as a safeguard as a valid payment message from an address is specified to include the associated public key and a digital signature proving possession of the associated private key. As an entity possessing a private key can spend all of the bitcoins sent to a corresponding address, the essence of Bitcoin security is protection of private keys.