Patent Issued for Artificial reality encryption and decryption (USPTO 11954194): United Services Automobile Association

2024 APR 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Wu, Huihui (Grapevine, TX, US), filed on September 29, 2021, was published online on April 9, 2024, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11954194 is assigned to United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Paper and electronic documents are frequently sent containing unprotected, sensitive information. This information can be viewed by unintended recipients, making it vulnerable to theft. Some secured transmission mediums exist for digital documents, such as by encrypting files and using secured email systems. However, these systems are difficult and frustrating for uses and fail to provide any solution for paper documents.

“The techniques introduced here may be better understood by referring to the following Detailed Description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numerals indicate identical or functionally similar elements.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Aspects of the present disclosure are directed to increasing security of private information in documents through the encryption of the private information and decryption by an artificial reality device. Documents (electronic or physical), such as financial or insurance documents, can contain personal identifiable information that can be detrimental to a user if the information were stolen. Thus, an encryption and decryption system that encrypts/decrypts portions of either electronic or physical documents containing private information is needed. As used herein, “private information” can be any information a user (individual, organization, group, company, etc.) wishes to keep secure, such as social security numbers, driver’s license number, account numbers, passport number, email address, security information, classified information, etc.

“In some implementations, an encryption and decryption system can encrypt private information to be decrypted by an artificial reality device (e.g., augmented reality glasses). In some cases, it is unnecessary to encrypt an entire document. The encryption and decryption system can receive a document and identify the protected (e.g., encrypted) portion of the document. In some cases, the protected portion of the document can contain a security token that the encryption and decryption system can extract. The system can compare the security token to an authentication token associated with the user (recipient or sender) and determine whether the security and authentication token match. If the tokens match, the system can decrypt the protected portion of the document and display the decrypted data as a virtual object.

“For example, a user can receive a paper letter from her bank specifying her account number. However, instead of showing the account number in plain text, a code can be shown that is an encrypted version of the account number. The user can view the document through artificial reality glasses. The glasses can recognize that part of the document has an encrypted code with a corresponding security token. The artificial reality glasses can authenticate the user to obtain an authentication token (e.g., decryption key), decrypt the code, and present the account number as a virtual object, allowing the user to see her account number over the document.

“The encryption and decryption system can also allow a user to control who has access to the user’s data. A user can access an application that allows the user to digitally replace parts of a document with and encrypted version, associated with a security token that specifies individual, groups, or positions that are allowed to decrypt the content. For example, a user may want to mail a document containing her social security number to a company. However, she may only want the human resources department at the company to be able to see that private information. She can first load a digital version of the document onto her local device (e.g., mobile phone, laptop, artificial reality device, etc.) and load an encryption application. The user can specify the company, or the application can be associated with the company, and the encryption application can access information such as departments within the company. The user can select the human resources department and which part of the document contains her social security number. The application can encrypt that portion of the document with a security token that only allows a decryption key to be accessed by members of the human resources department. The user can then print and mail that version of the document. When the letter arrives at the company, only members of the human resources department will be able to, via their artificial reality device, view the decrypted version of the content (using the process from the previous example), even as the letter passes through multiple other hands.

“Embodiments of the disclosed technology may include or be implemented in conjunction with an artificial reality system. Artificial reality or extra reality (XR) is a form of reality that has been adjusted in some manner before presentation to a user, which may include, e.g., virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), hybrid reality, or some combination and/or derivatives thereof. Artificial reality content may include completely generated content or generated content combined with captured content (e.g., real-world photographs). The artificial reality content may include video, audio, haptic feedback, or some combination thereof, any of which may be presented in a single channel or in multiple channels (such as stereo video that produces a three-dimensional effect to the viewer). Additionally, in some embodiments, artificial reality may be associated with applications, products, accessories, services, or some combination thereof, that are, e.g., used to create content in an artificial reality and/or used in (e.g., perform activities in) an artificial reality. The artificial reality system that provides the artificial reality content may be implemented on various platforms, including a head-mounted display (HMD) connected to a host computer system, a standalone HMD, a mobile device or computing system, a “cave” environment or other projection system, or any other hardware platform capable of providing artificial reality content to one or more viewers.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method for document encryption, the method comprising: receiving, by an artificial reality device, an image of a document containing encrypted data; identifying a protected portion of the document containing the encrypted data; extracting a security token embedded in the protected portion of the document; determining whether the security token matches an authentication token associated with a user; in response to the determining that the security token matches the authentication token: decrypting data in the protected portion of the document; and displaying, by the artificial reality device, the decrypted data to the user as a virtual object.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein the document containing encrypted data was sent by a computing device which generated the document containing encrypted data by: receiving a version of the document with at least some unencrypted data; receiving an identification of a portion of the unencrypted data, from the document, to protect; receiving security parameters associated with the identified portion of the document; encrypting the identified portion of the document according to the security parameters; and providing the document with protected portions for transportation.

“3. The method of claim 1, further comprising, prior to determining whether the security token matches the authentication token associated with a user: obtaining identifying information of the user; confirming an authentication of the user using the identifying information of the user; and based on the confirming, obtaining the authentication token for encrypting or decrypting one or more portions in the document.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the protected portion of the document further comprises: detecting a first tag corresponding to a start of the protected portion of the document; and detecting a second tag corresponding to an end of the protected portion of the document.

“5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: decrypting a first section of the protected portion of the document based on a security level in the authentication token associated with the user.

“6. The method of claim 1, wherein the security token identifies a security level of the user required to decrypt data in the protected portion of the document.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein the identification of the protected portion of the document is performed by a machine learning model trained to identify protected portions of documents, wherein the machine learning model was trained using indications of previously identified protected portions of documents.

“8. A computing system for document encryption, the computing system comprising: one or more processors; and one or more memories storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to perform a process comprising: receiving, by an artificial reality device, an image of a document containing encrypted data; identifying a protected portion of the document containing the encrypted data; obtaining a security token for the protected portion of the document; determining whether the security token matches an authentication token associated with a user; in response to the determining that the security token matches the authentication token: decrypting data in the protected portion of the document; and displaying, by the artificial reality device, the decrypted data to the user as a virtual object.

“9. The computing system of claim 8, wherein the document containing encrypted data was sent by a computing device which generated the document containing encrypted data by: receiving a version of the document with at least some unencrypted data; receiving an identification of a portion of the unencrypted data, from the document, to protect; receiving security parameters associated with the identified portion of the document; encrypting the identified portion of the document according to the security parameters; and providing the document with protected portions for transportation.

“10. The computing system of claim 8, wherein the process further comprises, prior to determining whether the security token matches the authentication token associated with a user: obtaining identifying information of the user; confirming an authentication of the user using the identifying information of the user; and based on the confirming, obtaining the authentication token for encrypting or decrypting one or more portions in the document.

“11. The computing system of claim 8, wherein identifying the protected portion of the document further comprises: detecting a first tag corresponding to a start of the protected portion of the document; and detecting a second tag corresponding to an end of the protected portion of the document.

“12. The computing system of claim 8, wherein the process further comprises: decrypting a first section of the protected portion of the document based on a security level in the authentication token associated with the user.

“13. The computing system of claim 8, wherein the security token identifies a security level of the user required to decrypt data in the protected portion of the document.

“14. The computing system of claim 8, wherein the identification of the protected portion of the document is performed by a machine learning model trained to identify protected portions of documents.

“15. A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform a process for document encryption, the process comprising: receiving, by an artificial reality device, an image of a document containing encrypted data; identifying a protected portion of the document containing the encrypted data; determining security parameters required to access the protected portion of the document; determining whether a user’s authentication is sufficient to meet the security parameters; in response to the determining that the user’s authentication is sufficient to meet the security parameters: decrypting data in the protected portion of the document; and displaying, by the artificial reality device, the decrypted data to the user as a virtual object.

“16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein displaying the decrypted data to the user as a virtual object comprises tracking a location of the encrypted data in the document and displaying the virtual object in relation to the tracked location of the encrypted data.

“17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the process further comprises, prior to determining whether the user’s authentication is sufficient to meet the security parameters: automatically obtaining, by the artificial reality device, biometric identifying information of the user comprising one or more of: an iris scan, a fingerprint, or a voice recognition; and confirming an authentication of the user using the biometric identifying information.

“18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein identifying the protected portion of the document further comprises: detecting a first tag corresponding to a start of the protected portion of the document; and detecting a second tag corresponding to an end of the protected portion of the document.

“19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the process further comprises: decrypting a first section of the protected portion of the document based on a security level in the authentication token associated with the user.

“20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the security token identifies a security level of the user required to decrypt data in the protected portion of the document.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Wu, Huihui. Artificial reality encryption and decryption. U.S. Patent Number 11954194, filed September 29, 2021, and published online on April 9, 2024. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11954194)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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