US Patent 11494402 Apparatus and methods for producing data structures having internal self-references suitable for immutably representing and verifying data

Some embodiments described herein relate to a computer implemented method that includes performing a first work step associated with a first activity and with a first data product and performing a second work step associated with a second activity and associated with a second data product. A first chain of trust between the first work step and the second work step can be defined by defining a second manifest document that is associated with the second data product and that references a first manifest document associated with the first data product. An immutable data structure representing a second chain of trust independent of the first chain of trust can be defined by submitting the first manifest document and the second manifest document to a distributed ledger for validation.