Patent Issued for Cloaking And Watermark Of Non-Coded Information (USPTO 10,757,434)

2020 SEP 09 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Guillama, Noel J. (Wellington, FL); Heath, Chester A. (Boca Raton, FL), filed on October 18, 2018, was published online on September 7, 2020.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 10,757,434 is The Quantum Group Inc. (Lake Worth, Florida, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “A particular challenge in the fields of medicine and, indeed, healthcare generally is public acceptance of electronic healthcare records by the general public. Of specific concern to patients specifically, is the security, origin and accuracy of an individual’s records. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, aka ‘HIPPA’ was partly developed to improve the secure portability and continuity of health information in an environment of electronic healthcare records, but it cannot assure security. Like many laws, it specifies particular anticipated abuses and provides penalties for infraction after the fact. In an environment of commonplace identity theft and database intrusion, there evolves a need for making clandestine location of healthcare records difficult, while assuring the accuracy of such data with specific association to individuals and the historical development of such data.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The present invention is primarily directed to systems and methods for integrating health-relevant data from multiple sources and utilizing the integration to develop records of an individual’s wellness, illnesses, or overall state of health. One of many embodiments is the cloaking and/or subliminal watermarking of images. Digital images are comprised of dots, typically referred to as picture elements (PELs) or pixels, where each of the dots can be reduced to a numerical value within organized rows and columns of an image. In some embodiments, data can then be encrypted using changes to these numerical values. In embodiments where additional security is needed for the data, the numerical values can be encrypted, so as to further make examination of the image file difficult. In other embodiments, the data can be encoded into video files addition of additional frames, where the positions of the additional frames indicate a value for each bit of encoded data.

“The above summary is not intended to represent each embodiment or every aspect of the present disclosure. Rather, the foregoing summary merely provides an example of some of the novel aspects and features set forth herein. The above features and advantages, and other features and advantages of the present disclosure, will be readily apparent from the following detailed description of representative embodiments and modes for carrying out the present invention, when taken in connection with the accompanying drawings and the appended claims.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“We claim:

“1. A method for encoding data in an image, the method comprising: identifying a first numeric value for each pixel in a pair of two substantially identical pixels in a first image, wherein a portion of the first numeric value for each pixel in the pair comprises encoded data; replacing a portion of the first numeric value for each pixel in the pair with a second numeric value corresponding to encoded data to yield an updated numeric value for each pixel; providing a second image comprising the pair of two substantially identical pixels and all remaining pixels in the first image, wherein each pixel in the pair comprises the updated numeric values; and extracting the encoded data from the updated numeric values, the extracting including: inverting the first numeric value for each pixel in the pair to yield an inverted updated value; summing the inverted updated value and the first numeric value of the remaining pixel in the pair to yield a summed numeric value; and converting the summed numeric value into the encoded data.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein the second numeric value corresponding to the encoded data is encrypted.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein replacing a portion of the first numeric value for each pixel in the pair comprises: inverting the first numeric value for each pixel to yield an inverted value; replacing the first numeric value corresponding to encoded data for each pixel with a portion of the inverted value to yield a modified value; and inverting the modified value.

“4. A system, comprising: a processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon instructions for causing the processor to: identify a first numeric value for each pixel in a pair of two substantially identical pixels in a first image, wherein a portion of the first numeric value for each pixel in the pair comprises encoded data; replace a portion of the first numeric value for each pixel in the pair with a second numeric value corresponding to encoded data to yield an updated numeric value for each pixel; provide a second image comprising the pair of two substantially identical pixels and all remaining pixels in the first image, wherein each pixel in the pair comprises the updated numeric values; and extract the encoded data from the updated numeric values, the extracting including: inverting the first numeric value for each pixel in the pair to yield an inverted updated value; summing the inverted updated value and the first numeric value of the remaining pixel in the pair to yield a summed numeric value; and converting the summed numeric value into the encoded data.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein the identified numeric values comprise least significant bits of the pair of two substantially identical pixels.

“6. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises: repeating the identifying, the replacing, and the providing for a plurality of pairs of substantially identical pixels in the first image.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein the pair of two substantially identical pixels comprise pixels with similar numeric values for obvious image information of the pixels.

“8. The system of claim 4, wherein the second numeric value corresponding to the encoded data is encrypted.

“9. The system of claim 4, wherein the replacing comprises: inverting the first numeric value for each pixel to yield an inverted value; replacing the first numeric value corresponding to encoded data for each pixel with a portion of the inverted value to yield a modified value; and inverting the modified value.

“10. The system of claim 4, wherein the two identified numeric values comprise least significant bits of the two substantially identical pixels.

“11. The system of claim 4, wherein the instructions further comprise: repeat the identifying, the replacing, and the providing for a plurality of pairs of substantially identical pixels in the first image.

“12. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions for performing a method of encoding data in a first image, the non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising machine executable code, which, when executed by at least one machine, causes the machine to: identify a first numeric value for each pixel in a pair of two substantially identical pixels in the first image, wherein a portion of the first numeric value for each pixel in the pair comprises encoded data; replace a portion of the first numeric value for each pixel in the pair with a second numeric value corresponding to encoded data to yield an updated numeric value for each pixel; provide a second image comprising the pair of two substantially identical pixels and all remaining pixels in the first image, wherein each pixel in the pair comprises the updated numeric values; and extract the encoded data from the updated numeric values, the extracting including: inverting the first numeric value for each pixel in the pair to yield an inverted updated value; summing the inverted updated value and the first numeric value of the remaining pixel in the pair to yield a summed numeric value; and converting the summed numeric value into the encoded data.

“13. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 12, wherein the second numeric value corresponding to the encoded data is encrypted.

“14. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 12, wherein replacing a portion of the first numeric value for each pixel in the pair comprises: inverting the first numeric value for each pixel to yield an inverted value; replacing the first numeric value corresponding to encoded data for each pixel with a portion of the inverted value to yield a modified value; and inverting the modified value.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Guillama, Noel J.; Heath, Chester A. Cloaking And Watermark Of Non-Coded Information. U.S. Patent Number 10,757,434, filed October 18, 2018, and published online on September 7, 2020. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=10,757,434.PN.&OS=PN/10,757,434RS=PN/10,757,434

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