Bank of America steps up blockchain effrots with new patent applications

Bank of America has filed 15 blockchain technology related patents and is currently drafting an additional 20 to be submitted to the US Patents and Trademarks Office (USPTO), it was revealed this week. The bank's patents show proposals for a cryptocurrency risk detection system and suspicious user alert system. The patents requested have not yet been granted.

Bank of America is trying to steal a march on the latest developments in the technology behind digital currency bitcoin by loading up on blockchain-related patents.

Blockchain works like a huge, decentralized ledger for the digital currency bitcoin which records every transaction and stores this information on a global network so it cannot be tampered with.

Major financial institutions -- including the Bank of England -- have released a number of notes over the last year on the potential of the technology and have created teams within their organizations to look into how to develop the cryptocurrency.

But Bank of America is going one step further by attempting to patent some of the use cases of the technology. The company has already filed for 15 blockchain-related patents and is currently in the process of drafting another 20 to be submitted to the U.S. Patents and Trademark Office (USPTO) later this month, a spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday.

"Blockchain's very intriguing and for us it's a balance between not wanting to be Neanderthal but not wanting to put something out in a commercial application where the commercial application is still very unclear as a technologist, the technology is fascinating," Catherine Bessant, the chief operations and technology office at Bank of America, said during a CNBC event at Davos last week.

"And we have tried to stay on the forefront, I think we have somewhere around 15 patents, most people would be surprised at Bank of America with patents in the blockchain or cryptocurrency space. (It's) very important in the intellectual property world to reserve our spot even before we know what the commercial application might be."