Patent Issued for Digital credentials as guest check-in for physical building access (USPTO 11792181): Workday Inc.

2023 NOV 03 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Hamel, Bjorn (Dublin, CA, US), Mangino, Scott (Oakland, CA, US), Ruggiero, Jonathan David (Danville, CA, US), filed on March 26, 2019, was published online on October 17, 2023.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11792181 is Workday Inc. (Pleasanton, California, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “A database system distributes cryptographic digital credentials to a user to allow the user to prove qualifications (e.g., a degree, employment experience, health insurance coverage, etc.). Credentials can be assigned to a user by a trusted third party client of the database system (e.g., a university, an insurer). Digital credentials can be used to authenticate building check-in for a guest, however, using credentials for authentication requires a system designed to use the credentials securely.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The invention can be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process; an apparatus; a system; a composition of matter; a computer program product embodied on a computer readable storage medium; and/or a processor, such as a processor configured to execute instructions stored on and/or provided by a memory coupled to the processor. In this specification, these implementations, or any other form that the invention may take, may be referred to as techniques. In general, the order of the steps of disclosed processes may be altered within the scope of the invention. Unless stated otherwise, a component such as a processor or a memory described as being configured to perform a task may be implemented as a general component that is temporarily configured to perform the task at a given time or a specific component that is manufactured to perform the task. As used herein, the term ‘processor’ refers to one or more devices, circuits, and/or processing cores configured to process data, such as computer program instructions.

“A detailed description of one or more embodiments of the invention is provided below along with accompanying figures that illustrate the principles of the invention. The invention is described in connection with such embodiments, but the invention is not limited to any embodiment. The scope of the invention is limited only by the claims and the invention encompasses numerous alternatives, modifications and equivalents. Numerous specific details are set forth in the following description in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. These details are provided for the purpose of example and the invention may be practiced according to the claims without some or all of these specific details. For the purpose of clarity, technical material that is known in the technical fields related to the invention has not been described in detail so that the invention is not unnecessarily obscured.

“The system for digital credentialing is designed to empower individual users to own their verifiable professional identity and to be able to enable this identity to be useable in scenarios where a verified identity allows access by providing proof of identity. An application might use the system to prove the identity or verify a user’s access ability to something. The application queries the system regarding a proof of identity and the user provides the proof using a credential to the system that is ultimately passed to the application to prove identity of the user. The system allows an application developer to pick attributes that an application challenges for and the sources that will satisfy any given challenge. The proof of identity is embodied in a digital credential that is able to be secured using a combination of cryptography and a distributed ledger (e.g., a decentralized ledger, a permissioned ledger, a public ledger, etc.) to assure legitimacy of the proof of identity.

“A system for digital credentialing receives the digital credential from a credential issuing system. The system for digital credentialing stores user information for the user. The system for digital credentialing further determines a set of credentials available to the user based on the user information as well as stores a record of previously issued credentials. The credentials comprise categories satisfied by the user information at differing levels of specificity (e.g., greater than an amount, in a range of amounts, less than an amount, etc.). For example, in the case where the user comprises an employee earning $95,000 per year, the system for digital credentialing could determine credentials available to the user indicating that the user earns more than $60,000 per year, that the user earns more than $80,000 per year, that the user earns in the range of $90,000-$100,000 per year, etc. When the user interacts with the system for digital credentialing using a credential requesting app or application, the system determines the set of credentials available to the user and provides the list of credentials to the credential requesting app or application. The user can then provide (e.g., from a storage on a user device) one or more available credentials to the credential requesting app or application.

“In various embodiments, a credential comprises data that is validated or verified to be authentic-for example, data verifying academic diplomas, academic degrees, certifications, security clearances, identification documents, badges, passwords, user names, keys, powers of attorney, human resource data, personal information, or any other relevant information,”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system for credential authentication, comprising: an interface configured to: receive a create indication to create a guest credential representing a guest badge associated with a visitor; and receive a claim indication from an authentication device associated with the visitor to claim the guest credential, wherein the claim indication comprises a one-time token; and a processor configured to: in response to the claim indication, generate a decentralized identifier (DID) keypair using the one-time token, wherein a private key component of the DID keypair is stored on the authentication device and public key component of the DID keypair is stored on a distributed ledger and provide the guest credential to the authentication device, wherein the guest credential comprises a DID; receive a request to authenticate entry to a check-in site from the authentication device, wherein the request to authenticate entry comprises a check-in site identifier of the check-in site; in response to receiving the request to authenticate entry, provide a proof request to the authentication device; receive a proof response from the authentication device, wherein the proof response comprises the guest credential; validate the proof response, comprising to check the public key component of the DID keypair stored on the distributed ledger matches the DID in the guest credential; in response to validating the proof response, determine whether the check-in site identifier is valid and verify that the visitor associated with the guest credential has permission to access the check-in site; and in response to a determination that the check-in site identifier is valid and that the visitor associated with the guest credential has permission to access the check-in site, authenticate the entry to the check-in site.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the create indication to create a guest credential is associated with an email address, a user ID, or a user account.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to verify the guest credential is associated with the authentication device.

“4. The system of claim 3, wherein verifying the guest credential is associated with the authentication device comprises comparing a guest credential email address with an authentication device email address.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein the request to authenticate entry is provided by the authentication device in response to an authentication request from the guest check-in site.

“6. The system of claim 5, wherein the authentication request from the guest check-in site is provided in response to a check-in request from the authentication device.

“7. The system of claim 6, wherein the check-in request from the authentication device is provided automatically upon detection of proximity of the authentication device to the guest check-in site.

“8. The system of claim 5, wherein the authentication device and the guest check-in site communicate using a wireless protocol.

“9. The system of claim 8, wherein the wireless protocol comprises Bluetooth, NFC, or Zigbee.

“10. The system of claim 1, wherein the proof response is signed with the authentication device private key component.

“11. The system of claim 1, wherein validating the proof response using the distributed ledger comprises determining that the guest credential is satisfactory to authenticate check-in, determining that a guest credential signature is valid, determining that the guest credential is not expired, or determining that the guest credential is not revoked by looking in the distributed ledger.

“12. The system of claim 1, wherein validating the proof response comprises determining that the visitor has a scheduled appointment or an employee authorization to enter.

“13. The system of claim 1, wherein the create indication to create a guest credential is provided by a human resources system guest setup process.

“14. The system of claim 1, wherein the claim indication from an authentication device to claim the guest credential is provided in response to an authentication device digital identification app setup.

“15. The system of claim 14, wherein the authentication device digital identification app setup is in response to an email sent as part of a human resources system guest setup process.

“16. A method for credential authentication, comprising: receiving a create indication to create a guest credential representing a guest badge associated with a visitor; and receiving a claim indication from an authentication device associated with the visitor to claim the guest credential, wherein the claim indication comprises a one-time token; and in response to the claim indication, generating, using a processor, a decentralized identifier (DID) keypair using the one-time token, wherein a private key component of the DID keypair is stored on the authentication device and public key component of the DID keypair is stored on a distributed ledger and providing the guest credential to the authentication device, wherein the guest credential comprises a DID; receiving a request to authenticate entry to a check-in site from the authentication device, wherein the request to authenticate entry comprises a check-in site identifier of the check-in site; in response to receiving the request to authenticate entry, providing a proof request to the authentication device; receiving a proof response from the authentication device, wherein the proof response comprises the guest credential; validating the proof response, comprising to check the public key component of the DID keypair stored on the distributed ledger matches the DID in the guest credential; in response to validating the proof response, determining whether the check-in site identifier is valid and verifying that the visitor associated with the guest credential has permission to access the check-in site; and in response to a determination that the check-in site identifier is valid and that the visitor associated with the guest credential has permission to access the check-in site, authenticating the entry to the check-in site.

“17. A computer program product for credential authentication, the computer program product being embodied in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and comprising computer instructions for: receiving a create indication to create a guest credential representing a guest badge associated with a visitor; and receiving a claim indication from an authentication device associated with the visitor to claim the guest credential, wherein the claim indication comprises a one-time token; and in response to the claim indication, generating, using a processor, a decentralized identifier (DID) keypair using the one-time token, wherein a private key component of the DID keypair is stored on the authentication device and public key component of the DID keypair is stored on a distributed ledger and providing the guest credential to the authentication device, wherein the guest credential comprises a DID; receiving a request to authenticate entry to a check-in site from the authentication device, wherein the request to authenticate entry comprises a check-in site identifier of the check-in site; in response to receiving the request to authenticate entry, providing a proof request to the authentication device; receiving a proof response from the authentication device, wherein the proof response comprises the guest credential; validating the proof response, comprising to check the public key component of the DID keypair stored on the distributed ledger matches the DID in the guest credential; in response to validating the proof response, determining whether the check-in site identifier is valid and verifying that the visitor associated with the guest credential has permission to access the check-in site; and in response to a determination that the check-in site identifier is valid and that the visitor associated with the guest credential has permission to access the check-in site, authenticating the entry to the check-in site.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Hamel, Bjorn. Digital credentials as guest check-in for physical building access. U.S. Patent Number 11792181, filed March 26, 2019, and published online on October 17, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11792181)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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