Patent Issued for Homomorphic encryption in a healthcare network environment, system and methods (USPTO 11936632): Nanthealth Inc.

2024 APR 09 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors 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), filed on March 15, 2023, was published online on March 19, 2024, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11936632 is assigned to Nanthealth Inc. (Culver City, California, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “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.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists 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 system for implementing a topology hiding protocol for communication over a network, the system comprising: one or more devices, each of the one or more devices being configured with a respective network interface for communicating over the network, the network interface of each of the one or more devices having a homomorphic encryption module for homomorphically encrypting packet header information of a packet to be transmitted over the network by the network interface; and one or more network nodes, each of the one or more network nodes being configured with a respective network interface for communicating over the network, the network interface of each of the one or more network nodes having a homomorphic encryption module for interpreting homomorphically encrypted packet header information of a packet based on a cryptographic key exchange between the network node and a sending device from among the one or more devices, wherein the homomorphic encryption module of each of the one or more devices homomorphically encrypts a source address of the device, wherein the network interface of each of the one or more devices is configured to transmit a packet over the network having packet header information that includes the homomorphically encrypted source address of the device and a destination address that is not homomorphically encrypted.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the destination address is a network address of one of the one or more devices other than the sending device.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the destination address is a network address of a data custodian.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more devices comprise at least one Internet of Things (IoT) device.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more devices comprise at least one wearable sensor.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more devices comprise at least one medical sensor.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the homomorphic encryption module of each of the one or more network nodes interprets the homomorphically encrypted packet header information from a result of an operation performed on the homomorphically encrypted packet header information in a homomorphic encryption memory area located at least in part at one or more of the network node, the sending device, and an additional computing device.

“8. The system of claim 7, wherein the homomorphic encryption memory area is located only at the network node.

“9. The system of claim 7, wherein the additional computing device comprises a server.

“10. The system of claim 9, wherein the homomorphic encryption memory area is located only at the server.

“11. The system of claim 7, wherein the homomorphic encryption memory area comprises a virtual memory space distributed across one or more memory locations.

“12. The system of claim 7, wherein the homomorphic encryption memory area is built on top of homomorphic encryption primitives from a homomorphic encryption library.

“13. The system of claim 1, wherein the homomorphic encryption module of each of the one or more network nodes interprets the homomorphically encrypted packet header information during a secure work session initiated between the network node and the sending device.

“14. The system of claim 13, wherein the secure work session comprises an asymmetric or symmetric cryptographic session.

“15. The system of claim 1, wherein the cryptographic key exchange comprises a public key infrastructure (PKI) key exchange.

“16. A method of implementing a topology hiding protocol for communication over a network, the method comprising: configuring each of one or more devices with a respective network interface for communicating over the network, the network interface of each of the one or more devices being configured to have a homomorphic encryption module for homomorphically encrypting packet header information of a packet to be transmitted over the network by the network interface; and configuring each of one or more network nodes with a respective network interface for communicating over the network, the network interface of each of the one or more network nodes being configured to have a homomorphic encryption module for interpreting homomorphically encrypted packet header information of a packet based on a cryptographic key exchange between the network node and a sending device from among the one or more devices, wherein the homomorphic encryption module of each of the one or more devices homomorphically encrypts a source address of the device, wherein the network interface of each of the one or more devices is configured to transmit a packet over the network having packet header information that includes the homomorphically encrypted source address of the device and a destination address that is not homomorphically encrypted.

“17. 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 implementing a topology hiding protocol for communication over a network, the operations comprising: configuring each of one or more devices with a respective network interface for communicating over the network, the network interface of each of the one or more devices being configured to have a homomorphic encryption module for homomorphically encrypting packet header information of a packet to be transmitted over the network by the network interface; and configuring each of one or more network nodes with a respective network interface for communicating over the network, the network interface of each of the one or more network nodes being configured to have a homomorphic encryption module for interpreting homomorphically encrypted packet header information of a packet based on a cryptographic key exchange between the network node and a sending device from among the one or more devices, wherein the homomorphic encryption module of each of the one or more devices homomorphically encrypts a source address of the device, wherein the network interface of each of the one or more devices is configured to transmit a packet over the network having packet header information that includes the homomorphically encrypted source address of the device and a destination address that is not homomorphically encrypted.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Kupwade-Patil, Harsh. Homomorphic encryption in a healthcare network environment, system and methods. U.S. Patent Number 11936632, filed March 15, 2023, and published online on March 19, 2024. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11936632)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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