Patent Issued for Cloaking and watermark of non-coded information (USPTO 11509922): The Quantum Group Inc.

2022 DEC 09 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Guillama, Noel J. (Wellington, FL, US), Heath, Chester A. (Boca Raton, FL, US), filed on July 22, 2020, was published online on November 22, 2022, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11509922 is assigned to The Quantum Group Inc. (Lake Worth, Florida, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors 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.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists 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:

“1. A method for encoding data in a video stream, the method comprising: receiving an initial video stream having a first frame, a second frame that follows consecutively the first frame, and a third frame that follows consecutively the second frame; determining a value associated with the data to encode in the initial video stream; in response to determining the value is a first value, inserting an additional frame between the first frame and the second frame of the initial video stream, the additional frame being identical to the second frame of the initial video stream, thereby converting the initial video stream to an encoded video stream, wherein the additional frame being identical to the second frame and preceding the second frame is indicative of the first value; and in response to determining the value is a second value, inserting the additional frame between the second frame and the third frame of the initial video stream, thereby converting the initial video stream to an encoded video stream, wherein the additional frame being identical to the second frame and following the second frame is indicative of the second value.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein the encoded data is associated with a unique identification of the video stream.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein the initial video stream is about 24 frames per second, and the encoded video stream is about 30 frames per second, wherein the encoded video stream includes six of the additional frames per second.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein the additional frame has been modified to include at least one electronically detectable alteration.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein the additional frame is inserted at a frame location of the encoded video stream that is associated with a unique signature that holds significance to a vendor of the initial video stream.

“6. The method of claim 1, wherein the initial video stream is an EKG, an EEG, or a capnography.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein the encoded data is healthcare information data.

“8. The method of claim 1, wherein the encoded data includes one or more first values and one or more second values together associated with a concealed watermark for the initial video stream.

“9. The method of claim 4, wherein the at least one electronically detectable alteration affects brightness and/or contrast of the additional frame.

“10. The method of claim 1, wherein either a presence or an absence of the additional frame in the encoded video stream is associated with a portion of the encoded data.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Guillama, Noel J. Cloaking and watermark of non-coded information. U.S. Patent Number 11509922, filed July 22, 2020, and published online on November 22, 2022. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11509922)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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