Supply Chain Carbon Management with Homomorphic Encryption

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing supply chain management systems face challenges in acquiring comprehensive information about the entire supply chain while maintaining the confidentiality of individual transactor data, particularly regarding carbon emissions, which are often considered trade secrets.

Innovation Solution

An information management method and system utilizing homomorphic encryption to share public keys among transactors, enabling secure computation of carbon emissions without disclosing individual transactor information, and using secure computation to accumulate and decrypt cumulative carbon emissions.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of information

If individual transactor data is shared openly in the supply chain, then comprehensive information about the entire supply chain can be acquired, but the confidentiality of individual transactor data (particularly carbon emissions as trade secrets) is compromised

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecomprehensive supply chain informationVSAvoiddata confidentiality

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments the supply chain information into individual transactor data units, each encrypted separately. Each transactor's carbon emission data is encrypted independently using their public key, allowing the information to be divided into confidential atomic units that can be processed individually while maintaining overall supply chain visibility when aggregated through secure computation.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces homomorphic encryption as an intermediary mechanism that enables computation on encrypted data without decryption. This intermediary allows the system to aggregate carbon emission data from multiple transactors and perform secure computations while the data remains encrypted, thus maintaining confidentiality while enabling comprehensive information acquisition.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Reliability

If homomorphic encryption is implemented to maintain data confidentiality, then individual transactor information remains protected, but the complexity of the information management system increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedata confidentialityVSAvoidinformation management system complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies homomorphic encryption universally across all transactors in the supply chain, creating a standardized multi-functional framework. The same encryption and secure computation mechanisms are used throughout the entire supply chain, allowing the system to handle various types of confidential data (carbon emissions, transaction records) with a single unified approach, thereby managing complexity through standardization.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Solution Approach 2:

The system enables each transactor to independently encrypt their own data using their public key and perform secure computations on their encrypted data without requiring external decryption assistance. This self-service capability reduces the need for complex centralized decryption infrastructure and simplifies the overall system architecture while maintaining strong security.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

3Reliability

If encrypted data is used throughout the supply chain, then data security is maintained, but the ease of operation and data processing becomes more difficult

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedata securityVSAvoiddata processing simplicity

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The patent replaces traditional mechanical decryption and data handling processes with homomorphic encryption-based secure computation. Instead of decrypting data to process it (the traditional mechanical approach), the system performs computations directly on encrypted data, substituting the decryption mechanism with a mathematical transformation that operates on ciphertext, thereby maintaining security while enabling data processing.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent changes the operational parameters of data processing by working in the encrypted domain rather than the plaintext domain. All computations are performed on encrypted values, and the results remain encrypted until final aggregation. This parameter change transforms the data processing workflow from decrypt-compute-encrypt to compute-encrypt-decrypt-only-at-end, simplifying the overall security management.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #35Parameter changes

Data Source

PatentUS20250274269A1Information management method and information management system

Publication Date: 2025.08.28 DENSO CORP

AI summary

An information management method or an information management system prepares a secret key and a public key based on homomorphic encryption, shares the public key by a plurality of transactors, acquires acquisition encryption information encrypted using the public key by an upstream transactor that is a transactor in a previous process that supplies a delivery item, prepares generation encryption information obtained by encrypting, using the public key, item-related information, and sets a secure computation result to provision information provided to a downstream transactor in a next process that provides a shipping item.