User-Bound License via Homomorphic Encryption
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current Digital Rights Management (DRM) licenses are bound to specific devices, which can compromise user privacy and require re-registration when a user changes devices, and using blockchain to store licenses does not anonymize usage rights, making them vulnerable to attacks.
Innovation Solution
Implementing homomorphic encryption with a unique user key to bind licenses to users rather than devices, using a nonce for obfuscation and verification processes to ensure only authorized users can access content, while maintaining privacy by not disclosing licensed content on a blockchain.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If licenses are bound to devices, then device-specific security is improved, but user privacy is compromised and re-registration is required when changing devices
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a license server as an intermediary between users and devices. The license server stores usage rights and issues licenses to devices on behalf of users. This mediator allows licenses to be device-specific for security while keeping the actual usage rights centralized and private on the server, eliminating the need for users to directly manage licenses on each device.
2Stability of the object's composition
If blockchain is used to store licenses, then decentralization and immutability are improved, but usage rights become exposed and vulnerable to attacks
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the actual usage rights from the license data structure stored on the blockchain. Instead of storing complete licenses with usage rights on the public blockchain, only license identifiers and device bindings are stored on-chain. The detailed usage rights remain private on the license server, eliminating the privacy vulnerability while maintaining blockchain's immutability for license issuance records.
3Reliability
If licenses are encrypted for device-specific binding, then security is improved, but license management complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements automatic license management where the license server autonomously handles license generation, encryption, and distribution to devices. The system self-manages the complexity of device-specific encryption by automatically generating device-specific keys and encrypting licenses without requiring user intervention. This maintains high security through encryption while eliminating the complexity burden from users.
Data Source
AI summary
Distributing and enforcing a license for content to be consumed according to conditions defined by usage rights stated in the license, including: encrypting the usage rights with a key using a homomorphic encryption and sending the encrypted usage rights to an agent; receiving from the agent modified encrypted usage rights generated by performing a homomorphic operation on the encrypted usage rights with a nonce; and decrypting the modified encrypted usage rights and sending the decrypted modified usage rights back to the agent, wherein usage rights are extracted from the decrypted modified usage rights by performing an operation that is reverse of the homomorphic operation with the nonce.