Researchers Submit Patent Application, “Method And Apparatus For Certification Of Facts”, for Approval (USPTO 20220092450): Patent Application

2022 APR 11 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Washington, D.C., NewsRx journalists report that a patent application by the inventors DONOHO, David Leigh (Stanford, CA, US); GAVISH, Matan (Stanford, CA, US), filed on December 2, 2021, was made available online on March 24, 2022.

No assignee for this patent application has been made.

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “

“The invention relates to the field of information trustworthiness and verification. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for certification of facts.

“Exchange of trustworthy information between two parties is a fundamental element of communication in modern society. The ability to exchange trustworthy information is a necessary condition for all cooperation between pairs of interacting parties across all walks of modern society, including commerce, business, government, law, science, insurance and medicine.

“Exchange of numerical, textual and digital information provides a basis for interaction in commerce, business, government, law, science, insurance and medicine.

“Customarily, such information is exchanged using documents of a standard form made for this purpose. Examples of such documents across various domains includes invoices, payable bills, bank account statements, credit card statements, financial reports, auditing or other accounting reports, appraisal reports, tax return forms, security transaction slips, legal evidence reports, insurance claim forms, scientific experiment reports, clinical study reports, medical files and so on. However, information exchanged during an interaction may take various other forms, such as tables, charts, pictures, audio files, video files and many other forms of digital information.

“During the course of an interaction between parties, one party (a fact presenter) may present another party (a fact receiver) with a single or a small number of actionable pieces of information, or facts, which prompt action or cooperation by the receiver. Examples for facts that prompt cooperation are the amount due in a bill, a bank account status, an investment portfolio net worth, corporate annual revenue and total current assets, total taxable income, a photograph submitted as legal evidence, an incident report for an insurance claim, a measurement included in a scientific experiment report, a medical diagnosis, an appraised value of an asset, a result of a clinical study for a new drug, a mortgage monthly payment, a valuation of a company and valuation of a security, and so on. A list of examples of fact-presenter-receiver situations in various domains is presented in Table 1 below:

“<tables id=’TABLE-US-00001’ num=’00001’>

<row> <entry> Bank employee <entry> Bank <entry> Registered transaction <row> <entry> Hospital <entry> Medical insurance <entry> diagnosis <row> <entry /> <entry> company <row> <entry> Hospital <entry> Medical insurance <entry> bill <row> <entry /> <entry> company <row> <entry> Medical insurance <entry> patient <entry> medical bill <row> <entry> company <row> <entry> Utility company <entry> customer <entry> bill <row> <entry> Tax auditor <entry> tax payer <entry> tax due <row> <entry> Tax payer <entry> government <entry> tax report <row> <entry> Company financial <entry> company share- <entry> periodical financial <row> <entry> officer <entry> holders <entry> reports <row> <entry> Medical doctor <entry> patient <entry> diagnosis <row> <entry> Land surveyors <entry> local authorities <entry> Map of surveyed area <row> <entry> Bank <entry> customer <entry> account balance <row> <entry> Credit card company <entry> customer <entry> account balance due <row> <entry> Investment manager <entry> investor <entry> portfolio value <row> <entry> Securitization trust <entry> investor <entry> security valuation <row> <entry> Real estate appraisal <entry> owner or buyer <entry> value of property <row> <entry> professional <row> <entry> Real estate appraisal <entry> insurance company <entry> value of property to be <row> <entry> professional <entry /> <entry> insured <row> <entry> Eye witness to event <entry> court <entry> photograph evidnece <row> <entry /> <entry /> <entry> of event <row> <entry> Clinical trials <entry> Regulatory agency <entry> p-value summarizing <row> <entry> responsible medical <entry /> <entry> statistical significance <row> <entry> officer <entry /> <entry> of trial result <row> <entry> Plaintiff in damages <entry> court <entry> estimate of damages <row> <entry> case <entry /> <entry> Claimed <row> <entry namest=’1’ nameend=’3’ align=’center’ rowsep=’1’ />

“Typically, the parties involved in a particular fact exchange may be a fact presenter and one or more fact receivers.

“2.1 To illustrate the notion of a fact, consider a simple, concrete example. A utility company issues a monthly bill to a customer based on an amount of units, for example, energy units such as kilowatt/hour, consumed as measured by a consumption gauge, and the unit price set by the company. The billed amount is a fact presented by the utility company (the presenter) to the customer (the receiver). The facts involved are:

“Units consumed, as measured by the consumption gauge device;

“Unit price, as observed by the utility company’s billing office; and

“Billed amount, as calculated by the company’s billing office by applying a known procedure (multiplication) to “basis facts”: units consumed and unit price.

“

“2.3 The Conventional Fact-Exchange Cycle

“The fact-exchange cycle is an entire interaction between fact presenter and receiver regarding a single fact, which includes the fact presentation and subsequent verification or evaluation of trustworthiness. The currently used method to present facts implies that the process of evaluating fact trustworthiness must be ad hoc, inefficient, and costly. As will be seen, a standard way to present trustworthy facts that the receiver may verify or otherwise inspect easily and at will does not currently exist.

“Currently, In order to evaluate the trustworthiness of a fact measured or observed by the fact presenter, the fact receiver must:

“

“Request evidence from the fact presenter regarding authenticity of the observation or measurement;

“Obtain the evidence from the fact presenter; and

“Check that the evidence itself is authentic.

“Similarly, in order to evaluate the trustworthiness of a fact deduced by the fact presenter from other basis facts, the fact receiver must:

“Understand the reasoning procedure applied (for example, figure out which arithmetic calculation was used);

“Identify the basis facts, to which this procedure was applied;

“Independently verify each basis fact

“Check that the deductive reasoning procedure was applied correctly (for example, that the arithmetic calculation is correct).

“

“For a concrete illustration of the various stages in these exchanges, consider audit accounting offices. A typical auditing task is to verify the facts that constitute the financial reports presented by an individual or an organization. Facts such as total assets or annual revenue are the result of complicated reasoning processes that are applied to an extremely large and complicated factual basis. The fact presenter is the company financial officer. The fact receiver is the audit accountant, a professional fact verifier, on behalf of the company shareholders and government regulators. Audit accountants verify on a test basis some of the observed facts upon which the financial reports are based (ledgers, receipts, etc) and assess their authenticity. They then verify on a test basis that the deductive reasoning processes used to generate the facts in the financial reports were applied correctly.

“Following the current verification process can require substantial resources, including many skilled workers and much capital. This can make fact verification practically impossible. Moreover, following the current verification process is sometimes physically impossible, because:

“

“The fact may be based on private information that the presenter cannot disclose to the receiver; or

“Given the time that may pass between the moment when the fact was presented to the moment when verification is called for, some observed facts can no longer be conclusively authenticated, or the possibility that they were tampered with post facto cannot be conclusively overruled;’

There is additional background information. Please visit full patent to read further.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent application, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “A method and apparatus for certification of facts introduces a certifier and a fact certificate into the fact-exchange cycle that enables parties to exchange trustworthy facts. Certification is provided to a fact presenter during the first part of the fact-exchange cycle, and verification is provided to the fact receiver during the last part of the cycle. To request a certification, a fact presenter presents the fact certifier with a fact. In return, the fact certifier issues a fact certificate, after which the fact presenter presents the fact certificate to the fact receiver instead of presenting the fact itself. The fact receiver inspects the received fact certificate in order to evaluate the fact’s validity and trustworthiness. For some facts and notions of verification, the fact certificate is sufficient and its inspection does not require any communication. For others, the fact receiver requests a verification service from the fact certifier in order to complete the verification.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method for exchange of verifiable digital information, using a fact certification module and a fact verification module, the fact certification module and fact verification module each comprising a processor, a communication interface, and wherein the fact certification module and the fact verification module each have access to a permanent storage system, wherein during a fact certification stage, the fact certification module performs the method comprising: receiving a digital fact for certification at the fact certification module from a fact presenter via the communication interface; issuing a digital certification data structure corresponding to the digital fact received for certification, wherein validity of the digital fact received for certification is verifiable by a receiver of the digital certification data structure; archiving the digital certification data structure in a permanent storage system; and wherein, during a fact verification stage, the fact verification module performs the method comprising: receiving a verification request at the fact verification module from a fact receiver via the communication interface, the request including any of a digital fact of interest, a digital digest of the fact of interest, or a unique fact identifier corresponding to the fact of interest; accessing a permanent storage; and returning to the fact receiver via the communication interface a response to the received verification request, the response comprising any of: a search result, a digital certification data structure retrieved from the permanent storage system, and a formatted response data structure.

“2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: said fact certification module transmitting any of the digital certification data structure, a digital digest thereof, or a unique fact identifier to the fact presenter via the communication interface.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein said fact presenter discloses only a digest of the digital fact to the certification module.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein said fact certification module responds to said fact presenter with a unique fact; and wherein said unique fact is usable as part of a verification request.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein said digital fact presented for certification comprises any of one or more digital facts that are disclosed to the fact certification module upon presentation thereto or a digital digest of one or more digital facts by which the one or more digital facts that are not disclosed to the certification module upon presentation thereto.

“6. The method of claim 1, said archiving the digital certification data structure in the permanent storage system further comprising: archiving the digital certification data structure and any of the digital fact and a digital digest of the digital fact.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein the certification module is embedded in a digital device comprising one or more sensors that are adapted to make measurements; wherein the fact presenter comprises said digital device; wherein said digital fact presented for certification comprises the measurement made by said digital device; wherein the communication interface between the fact presenter and the certification module is internal to the digital device; and wherein the communication interface between the certification module and the verification module comprises a computer network interface.

“8. The method of claim 1, wherein the certification module comprises a server on a computer network, and wherein the communication interface comprises a computer network interface.

“9. The method of claim 1, wherein during said fact certification stage the fact certification module transmits any of: the digital facts received for certification, a digital digest thereof, and the digital certification data structure, to the fact verification module indirectly through a network of trusted verification modules.

“10. The method of claim 1, wherein during said fact certification stage the certification module publishes the fact certification data structure, or a digital digest thereof, on a public network or a public database.

“11. The method of claim 1, wherein the permanent storage system available to the fact verification module comprises a remote storage system accessible to the fact verification module via said communication interface.

“12. The method of claim 1, wherein the certification module and the verification module are implemented in a single module comprising one or more processors.

“13. The method of claim 1, wherein the permanent storage system associated with the fact certification module and the permanent storage system associated with the fact verification module exchange information therebetween during an interval between the fact certification stage and the fact verification stage.

“14. The method of claim 1, wherein the fact certification module and the permanent storage the fact verification module each have access to the permanent storage system.

“15. The method of claim 1, wherein facts for certification are accumulated over time before the fact certification stage in a buffer of the fact presenter, and wherein a batch of facts are presented to the fact certification module for certification periodically to empty said buffer.

“16. The method of claim 1, further comprising: a receiver of the fact certification structure verifying validity of any of the digital facts received for certification by the fact certification module, and wherein the receiver of the fact certification data structure verifies said fact certification data structure by inspection of the fact certification data structure or by communicating a verification request to a fact verification module.

“17. The method of claim 1, wherein the digital certification data structure further comprises the digital fact received for certification and the digital fact digest of the digital fact received for certification.

“18. The method of claim 1, wherein the digital fact digest comprises a cryptographic hash of the digital fact received for certification.

“19. The method of claim 1, wherein any of the digital certification data structure and the formatted response data structure further comprise any of: a date and time of the certification request, and an identity of the fact presenter.

“20. The method of claim 19, wherein the response data structure verifies to the fact receiver that the digital fact certification request has been made on or before the time and date stated in the digital certification data structure.

“21. The method of claim 1, said digital fact comprising: an observed fact comprising a truth known by measurement or observation.

“22. The method of claim 1, said digital fact comprising: a fact deduced by a valid, reasoned deductive process, based on other previously known basis facts.

“23. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving a digital fact for certification at the fact certification module from a fact presenter further comprises: said fact presenter maintaining privacy by said fact certification module receiving from said fact presenter a fact from which said fact presenter has withheld information comprising said digital fact; communicating a certification request to said fact certification module and said fact certification module storing the fact in permanent storage; and to present said digital fact, said fact presenter presenting a fact affidavit comprising a cryptographically secure digest of the fact to the fact receiver.

“24. The method of claim 1, further comprising: creating a certified fact network comprising an interconnected, annotated network of facts, in which facts are connected when one fact provides a basis for another fact.

“25. The method of claim 23, wherein said digital facts are any of: tagged with semantic tags and then tested to satisfy formal assertions; automatically indexed and searched based on reliance upon a certain evidence or a reasoned deduction procedure; used to automatically calculate a hypothesized change to a certified fact, which is caused by a given change in basis evidence of said digital fact’s; and processed automatically to agglomerate certified facts into new certified facts according to formal rules.

“26. The method of claim 1, further comprising: a plurality of certifiers receiving the fact for certification in response to said fact presenter broadcasting the fact to a plurality of potential fact certifiers for certification; one or more of said certifiers that received the fact certifying the fact; and said one or more fact certifiers that certified the fact creating a digital certification data structure and broadcasting said digital certification data structure back to said fact presenter.

“27. The method of claim 1, further comprising: said fact certification module broadcasting the digital certification data structure to a plurality of any of other fact certifiers and potential fact receivers; storing the digital certification data structure in a shared storage to make it available for access by any of said other fact certifiers and potential fact receivers within a specified network of stakeholders said other fact certifiers and potential fact receivers; a fact receiver who is a stakeholder fact certifier or potential fact receiver in the network and who is interested in verifying a fact locating the digital certification data structure corresponding to the fact to be verified on the shared storage; and said fact receiver inspecting said certificate and determining said digital fact’s validity.

“28. The method of claim 1, further comprising: in a network comprising any of other fact certifiers and potential fact receivers, any fact certifier or potential fact receiver acting as a fact presenter and/or a fact receiver and/or a fact certifier.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

For additional information on this patent application, see: DONOHO, David Leigh; GAVISH, Matan. Method And Apparatus For Certification Of Facts. Filed December 2, 2021 and posted March 24, 2022. Patent URL: https://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220220092450%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20220092450&RS=DN/20220092450

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)