NEC Assigned Eight Patents

Controlling access to shared resource
Nec Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,785,167) developed by Karame, Ghassan, Heidelberg, Germany, Gruber, Damian, Ritzdorf, Hubert, and Capkun, Srdjan, Zurich, Switzerland, for a “method for controlling access to a shared resource.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A method for controlling access to a shared resource for a plurality of collaborative users includes securely providing, on a storage and device entity, the shared resource. The shared resource is created by a resource owner entity. The method further includes specifying access control rules for the shared resource, translating the access control rules into a smart contract, including the smart contract into a blockchain, and if a second user requests access to the shared resource, performing access decisions for the shared resource by evaluating the smart contract with regard to the access control rules.”

The patent application was filed on July 26, 2016 (16/320,114).

Storing object on plurality of storage nodes
Nec Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,785,033) developed by Karame, Ghassan, Heidelberg, Germany, for a “method for storing an object on a plurality of storage nodes.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A method for storing an object on storage nodes includes encrypting an object to be stored with a key. One or more hash values are computed for the object. The encrypted object is stored on the storage nodes. Storage location data is provided for the stored object. A transaction is computed for a blockchain, wherein information is encoded in the transaction, the encoded information representing the storage location data, the computed o hash values and key data. The transaction is stored in the blockchain provided by one or more blockchain nodes hosting the blockchain. A number of confirmations is provided for the transaction. The number of confirmations is compared with a predefined threshold confirmation number, wherein the predefined threshold confirmation number is computed such that with a pregiven certainty the encoded information in the transaction stored in the blockchain cannot be modified.”

The patent application was filed on September 4, 2015 (15/756,599).

Packet forwarding apparatus for handling multicast packet
Nec Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,742,697) developed by Uchida, Satoshi, Tokyo, Japan, for a “packet forwarding apparatus for handling multicast packet.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A packet forwarding apparatus includes: a multicast determination unit that determines whether a packet that flows through a virtual network is a multicast communication packet, a multicast mapping information storage unit, a multicast mapping unit that allocates a second multicast address to a first multicast address of a newly generated multicast communication and manages these multicast addresses as a piece of mapping information, and a packet encapsulation unit that encapsulates the packet that flows through the virtual network. The packet encapsulation unit encapsulates the multicast communication packet that flows through the virtual network by using the second multicast address.”

The patent application was filed on November 13, 2018 (16/188,633).

Software storage unit, backup method, and recording medium storing backup control program
Nec Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,733,062) developed by Matsumoto, Kouichi, Tokyo, Japan, for “software storage unit, backup method, and recording medium storing backup control program.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”The present invention provides a software storage unit, a backup method, and a backup control program capable of completing data transfer to a data backup destination in a shorter time. The software storage unit includes a software storage section constructed across a plurality of physical machines and a switch section coupled to an external network, wherein the software storage section grasps data to back up, among stored data, which is to be transferred to a data backup destination, splits the grasped data into a plurality of data parts, and issues a command to transfer the split data parts from respective ones of the plurality of physical machines to the data backup destination via the switch section.”

The patent application was filed on November 18, 2016 (15/771,112).

Encrypting data with all-or-nothing encryption scheme having additional randomness
Nec Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,728,021) developed by Karame, Ghassan, Heidelberg, Germany, for “method and system for encrypting data with an all-or-nothing encryption scheme having additional randomness.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A method for encrypting data for storage on one or more servers includes dividing the data, which includes a first number m of plaintext blocks, into a second number N of equal sized chunks, wherein the second number is based on a number of the servers on which the encrypted data is to be stored, and wherein each chunk includes m/N plaintext blocks. Each of the chunks is encrypted using an all-or-nothing encryption (AONE) scheme so as to output a plurality of ciphertext blocks for each chunk, wherein an additional randomness is embedded into the AONE scheme by an initialization vector derived from the randomness being used as an initial seed for an AONE initialization vector of the AONE scheme. The randomness is encrypted using an XOR-combination of XOR operations performed on the ciphertext blocks for each chunk. The encrypted randomness is stored on each of the servers.”

The patent application was filed on May 28, 2019 (16/423,209).

System analyzing device, system analyzing method and storage medium
Nec Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,719,577) developed by Natsumeda, Masanao, Tokyo, Japan, for “system analyzing device, system analyzing method and storage medium.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A system analyzing device according to the present invention includes: a collection unit that collects a plurality of pieces of sensor data of a monitored system, a storage unit that stores a correlation modes based on at least one of a plurality of pieces of sensor data, and a standard contribution acquisition unit that acquires, for a predicted value of an objective variable of a regression equation thereof, a standard contribution indicating a ratio of contribution of each of the data included as explanatory variables.”

The patent application was filed on December 1, 2015 (15/528,825).

Storage node, storage node administration device, storage node logical capacity setting method, program, recording medium, and distributed data storage
Nec Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,708,355) developed by Yamakawa, Satoshi, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage node, storage node administration device, storage node logical capacity setting method, program, recording medium, and distributed data storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A storage node administration device enables setting a logical capacity of a storage region based on an I/O performance value of a storage node. In a distributed data storage system, the storage node administration device includes a setting unit setting at least one reference node from a plurality of storage nodes having different I/O performances, dividing a storage region of the storage nodes other than the reference node into a first storage region and a second storage region, referring to the I/O performance and the logical capacity of the reference node, and setting the logical capacity of each region to match the I/O performance of the storage nodes other than the reference node, a determination unit determining system configuration information which reflects a configuration change of the distributed data storage system, and a transmission unit transmitting the system configuration information to the storage nodes having different I/O performances.”

The patent application was filed on May 15, 2014 (14/781,088).

Allocating and initializing I/O devices at virtual
Nec Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,684,880) developed by Tsuji, Akira, Tokyo, Japan, for “allocating and initializing I/O devices at virtual.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”The purpose of the present invention is to provide a computer which is capable of increasing the number of I/O devices which connect to a PCI fabric which has predetermined specifications. This computer comprises: a storage unit which retains an I/O device list which is used to manage the allocation to a virtual machine which runs on the computer of an I/O device which is connected to the computer via a network, a virtual machine monitor which identifies the I/O device which is required for the operation of the virtual machine, and an I/O device manager which refers to the I/O device list and assesses whether the I/O device which has been identified by the virtual machine monitor is available to be allocated to the virtual machine, and if there is an I/O device available to be allocated to the virtual machine, allocates the I/O device to the virtual machine, and registers in the storage unit an identifier which is assigned to the I/O device on the basis of predetermined specifications, together with an identifier of the virtual machine.”

The patent application was filed on October 17, 2016 (15/770,045).