Patent Issued for Systems and methods for selectively sending encryption keys (USPTO 11658809): United Services Automobile Association

2023 JUN 08 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Pena, Ric M. (Boerne, TX, US), Smith, Arthur Quentin (Fredericksburg, TX, US), Tougas, Brian (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on July 31, 2020, was published online on May 23, 2023.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11658809 is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “The present disclosure relates generally to systems and methods for selective data sharing. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to techniques to selectively providing an encryption key to a third-party target device to decrypt encrypted user data.

“This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to help provide the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it is understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.

“While a user utilizes a computing device, the computing device may generate user data in response to certain actions performed by the user. For example, the computing device may generate user data when the user submits a search query using a search engine, selects actionable items (e.g., buttons, hyperlinks, hypertext, and the like) on a webpage or application, visits websites, selects vendors or interests on social media, and the like. At least in some instances, the user data may be sent to third-party data aggregators that sell the user data and/or analyze the user data to generate user data analytics which may be sold to another third party. In any case, the user data and/or user data analytics may ultimately be used to determine content and/or advertisements to send to the user and/or other users based on correlations between components within the user data, such as demographic information (e.g., age, race, sex, and the like), temporal data (e.g., time of day, months, seasons, and the like), and content the user and/or other users may be interested in. However, the user may not want the third-party data aggregators or the third party to send certain content or advertisements.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “One or more specific embodiments will be described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, not all features of an actual implementation are described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions may be made to achieve the developers’ specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time-consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.

“When introducing elements of various embodiments of the present disclosure, the articles “a,” “an,” and “the” are intended to mean that there are one or more of the elements. The terms “comprising,” “including,” and “having” are intended to be inclusive and mean that there may be additional elements other than the listed elements. Additionally, it should be understood that references to “some embodiments”, “one embodiment”, or “an embodiment” of the present disclosure are not intended to be interpreted as excluding the existence of additional embodiments that also incorporate the recited features.

“As used herein, the term “application” refers to one or more computing modules, programs, processes, workloads, threads, and/or computing instructions executed by a computing system. Example embodiments of an application include software modules, software objects, software instances, and/or other types of executable code. As referred to herein, “user data” may include data associated with and/or identifying a user. In some embodiments, user data may include data that relates the actions performed by the user while utilizing the computing device, with information associated with and/or identifying the user. For example, user data may include an indication of the actions performed by the user (e.g., a website opened, an application accessed, a file downloaded, a link associated with a product that the user selected, and the like), user identity data (e.g., IP address, email, and the like), or demographic information of the user (e.g., age, race, location, and the like).

“To protect the privacy of the user, certain software applications may encrypt the user data before the user data is sent to a database associated with the third party. As such, the user data may be unusable by the third party, which may prevent the user from receiving targeted content or advertisements. It is presently recognized that it may be advantageous for the user to allow or deny utilization by the third party of at least a portion of the user data for certain analytics. For example, the user may desire to receive certain targeted content or advertisements associated with certain hobbies or interests of the user (e.g., sales on certain types of products, advertisements for certain brands, and notifications of upcoming product releases). Additionally, while the user data may indicate other hobbies or interests of the user, the user may not wish to receive targeted content or advertisements associated with the other hobbies or interests (e.g., political affiliations, religious affiliations, social causes). Further, it may be advantageous for the user to sell a portion of the user data to the third-party aggregators. Accordingly, embodiments of the present disclosure relate to selectively sending encryption keys associated with encrypted user data. That is, the user may determine when or in what situations to send an encryption key to a third party, which enables the third party to decrypt the encrypted user data and utilize the user data for sale and/or generating user data analytics. In this way, the user may benefit by deciding what type of targeted content or advertisements may be sent to the user, thereby improving the user’s efficiency in locating products. Moreover, the user may financially benefit by selling the user data via selectively sending the encryption key.

“With the foregoing in mind, FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a selective data sharing system 10 that includes a user device 12, one or more target devices 16, and a network 18, in accordance with embodiments described herein. The user device 12 may include an electronic device having a processor to perform one or more operations described herein. The user device 12 may be worn, held, or associated with the property owner that may be used to send and receive data and/or receive inputs from the property owner. For example, the user device 12 may be a personal computer, laptop computer, tablet computer, smart phone, and so. The user device 12 may be in communication with other user devices 12 and receive the initial indication via an interface of the user device 12. As illustrated and discussed in further detail below, the user device 12 may store a selective data sharing application 20, as well as store and generate user data 22.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. An electronic device, comprising: one or more processors; a tangible, non-transitory, computer-readable medium, comprising instructions configured to cause the one or more processors to perform acts comprising: receiving an indication to send one or more types of user data to a target device; determining a price associated with the one or more types of user data; generating an encryption key associated with the user data in response to receiving the indication; encrypting the user data with the encryption key to generate encrypted user data; sending the encrypted user data to the target device; determining whether the target device is authorized to receive the encryption key based on the price associated with the one or more types of user data and a time period associated with when the user data was generated; and sending the encryption key to the target device in response to determining that the time period is within a time range.

“2. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to perform the acts comprising: generating the user data in response to one or more actions performed by a user using the electronic device, wherein in the one or more actions comprise selecting a hyperlink, opening a webpage, selecting actionable content displayed on an application, or any combination thereof; and receiving the indication in response to generating the user data.

“3. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to perform the acts comprising: receiving user input indicating that the target device is authorized to receive the encryption key, wherein the user input comprises filter data indicative of certain types of data that the user has authorized to transmit to the target device; and determining to send the encryption key in response to determining that a payload of the user data correlates to the filter data.

“4. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the indication comprises a request for user data transmitted by the target device.

“5. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to perform the acts comprising: determining an amount of memory used to store the encryption key and one or more additional encryption keys; and sending the encrypted user data in response to determining that the amount of memory used to store the encryption key and the one or more additional encryption keys is above a threshold.

“6. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the user data is associated with an application stored on the tangible, non-transitory, computer-readable medium, and wherein the instructions comprise receiving the indication in response to a user accessing the application.

“7. A method, comprising: setting, via a processor, a first price associated with user data generated using the processor to be sent to a target device; receiving, via the processor, an indication to send the user data to the target device; generating, via the processor, an encryption key associated with the user data in response to receiving the indication; storing, via the processor, the encryption key in a memory; encrypting, via the processor, the user data with the encryption key to generate encrypted user data; sending, via the processor, the encrypted user data to the target device; receiving, via the processor, a second price from the target device; determining, via the processor, that the first price is accepted based on a comparison between the first price and the second price; and sending, via the processor, the encryption key to the target device in response to determining that the first price is accepted and after a time threshold.

“8. The method of claim 7, comprising determining, via the processor, that the first price is accepted in response to determining that the second price is greater than or equal to the first price.

“9. The method of claim 7, wherein the user data comprises temporal data and demographic data, and wherein setting the first price comprises setting a temporal data price for the temporal data and a demographic data price for the demographic data.

“10. The method of claim 9, comprising setting the temporal data price based on an overlap between a time period when the user data was generated and fiscal periods of a company associated with the user data.

“11. The method of claim 7, comprising receiving, via the processor, user input indicating the first price.

“12. The method of claim 7, wherein the first price comprises a percentage of profits that a third party associated with the target device gains based on the user data.

“13. A tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising: generating an encryption key in response to user data being generated on a computing device at a time period; comparing the time period when the user data was generated to a fiscal time period of a company associated with the computing device; setting a price associated with the user data based on a plurality of types of information associated with the user data and comparing the time period to the fiscal time period; encrypting the user data with the encryption key to generate encrypted user data; sending the encrypted user data to a target device; determining whether the target device is authorized to receive the encryption key based on the price; and sending the encryption key to the target device in response to determining that the target device is authorized to receive the encryption key.

“14. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 13, wherein determining whether the target device is authorized to receive the encryption key based on the price comprises: receiving an additional price from the target device; and comparing the price to the additional price; and wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform operations comprising sending the encryption key to the target device in response to determining that the additional price is greater than or equal to the price.

“15. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the user data is associated with one or more actions performed by a user using the computing device, wherein the one or more actions comprise selecting a hyperlink, opening a webpage, selection actionable content displayed on an application, or any combination thereof.

“16. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform operations comprising setting the price associated with the user data based on a percentage of profits that a third party associated with the target device gains based on the user data.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Pena, Ric M. Systems and methods for selectively sending encryption keys. U.S. Patent Number 11658809, filed July 31, 2020, and published online on May 23, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11658809)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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