Patent Issued for Homomorphic encryption in a healthcare network environment, system and methods (USPTO 11632358): Nanthealth Inc.

2023 MAY 04 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Nanthealth Inc. (Culver City, California, United States) has been issued patent number 11632358, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Kupwade-Patil, Harsh (Plano, TX, US), Seshadri, Ravi (Plano, TX, US), Soon-Shiong, Patrick (Culver City, CA, US), Witchey, Nicholas J. (Laguna Hills, CA, US).

This patent was filed on July 26, 2022 and was published online on April 18, 2023.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “The background description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present disclosure. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the disclosure, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.

“The healthcare industry is going through a digital revolution stimulated in part by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Modernizing healthcare has led to a new age of digital health and wellness, in which healthcare data is collected from disparate sources (e.g., sensors connected to patients), and stored in disparate healthcare clouds (e.g., private, community and public clouds). Moreover, the volume of agglomerated healthcare data is large enough to qualify as “big data”. As healthcare clouds become a prominent feature in the healthcare industry, there is a greater need for securely sharing patient information across such disparate healthcare clouds. Furthermore, with Accountable Care Organizations (ACOS) (e.g., healthcare care providers such as doctors, hospitals and insurance providers) coming together to provide high-quality care in a cost-effective manner, demand for seamless connectivity across the healthcare clouds is greater than ever. A simplified patient-centric model is desirable where patients can change providers and still share their information in a timely manner, for better diagnosis and treatment, and eventually for improved global health.

“At present, healthcare providers who host sensitive patient data in private healthcare clouds across the globe are hesitant to share that information because of security and privacy issues. As healthcare providers move to community and public cloud based services, a need for secure interaction between disparate healthcare clouds increases. Furthermore, security regulations imposed by Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) place an onerous task on healthcare Information Technology (IT) infrastructure to be compliant with privacy and security regulations. In addition, with emerging Internet of Things (IoT) market and its integration in the big data cloud platform, there is increased concern about security and privacy with the healthcare cloud paradigm.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Apparatus, systems and methods for homomorphic encryption in a healthcare network environment is provided and includes receiving data at a data custodian server in a plurality of formats from various data sources, encrypting the data according to a homomorphic encryption scheme, receiving a query at the data custodian server from a data consumer device concerning a portion of the encrypted data, initiating a secure homomorphic work session between the data custodian server and the data consumer device, generating a homomorphic work space associated with the homomorphic work session, compiling, by the data custodian server, a results set satisfying the query, loading the results set into the homomorphic work space, and building an application programming interface (API) compatible with the results set, the API facilitating encrypted analysis on the results set in the homomorphic work space.

“Various objects, features, aspects and advantages of the subject matter will become more apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments, along with the accompanying drawing figures in which like numerals represent like components.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method of establishing proof of a statement through the use of homomorphic encryption, the method comprising: initiating a secure work session over a network between a first computing device and a second computing device; allocating a homomorphic encryption memory area to be used by the secure work session, the homomorphic encryption memory area being located at least in part at one or more of the first computing device, the second computing device, and an additional computing device; loading, into the homomorphic encryption memory area, homomorphically encrypted data indicative of proof of the statement, wherein at least a portion of the homomorphically encrypted data is accessible to the second computing device via an application programming interface (API); determining a result from an operation performed by the second computing device on the homomorphically encrypted data in the homomorphic encryption memory area via the API; and providing the result to the second computing device to establish proof of the statement based at least in part on the result without the second computing device capable of decrypting the homomorphically encrypted data.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein the API translates a query from the second computing device, the homomorphically encrypted data being inserted into the homomorphic encryption memory area in response to the translated query.

“3. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, from the first computing device, data indicative of proof of the statement; and encrypting the received data according to a homomorphic encryption scheme to produce the homomorphically encrypted data indicative of proof of the statement.

“4. The method of claim 3, wherein said encrypting the received data comprises encrypting the received data according to a context specific to the secure work session between the first and second computing devices.

“5. The method of claim 4, wherein the context is associated with at least one cryptographic key.

“6. The method of claim 1, wherein said loading includes sending the homomorphically encrypted data and the API to the second computing device.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein the homomorphically encrypted data comprises a structured encrypted vector.

“8. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a public cryptographic key to the second computing device, the public cryptographic key having a corresponding private cryptographic key to the homomorphic encryption memory area.

“9. The method of claim 1, wherein the secure work session comprises a symmetric cryptographic session.

“10. The method of claim 1, wherein the additional computing device comprises a server.

“11. The method of claim 10, wherein the homomorphic encryption memory area is instantiated only at the server.

“12. The method of claim 1, wherein the homomorphic encryption memory area comprises a virtual memory space distributed across one or more memory locations.

“13. The method of claim 1, wherein the homomorphic encryption memory area is built on top of homomorphic encryption primitives from a homomorphic encryption library.

“14. The method of claim 1, further comprising reducing noise associated with the result and introduced by execution of the operation on the homomorphically encrypted data.

“15. The method of claim 1, further comprising renormalizing at least a portion of the result.

“16. The method of claim 1, wherein the result comprises a results set.

“17. The method of claim 16, wherein the results set comprises a results vector.

“18. The method of claim 1, wherein the homomorphically encrypted data is associated with a patient.

“19. The method of claim 1, wherein the proof of the statement is established without using zero knowledge proof (ZNP).

“20. The method of claim 1, wherein the proof of the statement is established at least in part through use of zero knowledge proof (ZNP).

“21. A system comprising one or more non-transitory computer readable storage media on which are stored instructions executable by one or more processors to perform operations for establishing proof of a statement through the use of homomorphic encryption, the operations comprising: initiating a secure work session over a network between a first computing device and a second computing device; allocating a homomorphic encryption memory area to be used by the secure work session, the homomorphic encryption memory area being located at least in part at one or more of the first computing device, the second computing device, and an additional computing device; loading, into the homomorphic encryption memory area, homomorphically encrypted data indicative of proof of the statement, wherein at least a portion of the homomorphically encrypted data is accessible to the second computing device via an application programming interface (API); determining a result from an operation performed by the second computing device on the homomorphically encrypted data in the homomorphic encryption memory area via the API; and providing the result to the second computing device to establish proof of the statement based at least in part on the result without the second computing device capable of decrypting the homomorphically encrypted data.

“22. A system for establishing proof of a statement through the use of homomorphic encryption, the system comprising: a plurality of computing devices; and a server communicatively coupled to the plurality of computing devices, the server being operable to initiate a secure work session over a network with one or more of the plurality of computing devices, allocate a homomorphic encryption memory area to be used by the secure work session, and load, into the homomorphic encryption memory area, homomorphically encrypted data indicative of proof of the statement, the homomorphic encryption memory area being located at least in part at either or both of the server and a computing device from among the plurality of computing devices, at least a portion of the homomorphically encrypted data being accessible to at least one of the plurality of computing devices via an application programming interface (API), wherein the at least one computing device is operable to perform an operation on the homomorphically encrypted data in the homomorphic encryption memory area via the API, and wherein the server is further operable to provide a result determined from the operation to the at least one computing device to establish proof of the statement based at least in part on the result without the at least one computing device capable of decrypting the homomorphically encrypted data.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Kupwade-Patil, Harsh. Homomorphic encryption in a healthcare network environment, system and methods. U.S. Patent Number 11632358, filed July 26, 2022, and published online on April 18, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11632358)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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