(19)Fresh off Patent
(45) Week of Oct 19, 2026 No. 7 3,667 lapsed 70 listed
Cybersecurity & privacy · lapsed Sep 4, 2026

Encrypted aggregation in a star network using encrypted polynomial shares

A protocol for private aggregation where each participant sends multiple ciphertexts that encode polynomial shares of its input; a central aggregator homomorphically combines shares by recipient, returns per-recipient encrypted partials, participants decrypt and return partials, and the aggregator reconstructs the global aggregate from a subset of decrypted partials. It targets scenarios where endpoints do not peer (star topology) and privacy requires endpoints not learn others' inputs.

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(57) What the patent covered

This write-up was generated by AI from the patent's text and may contain mistakes, so check it against the original patent before relying on it.

The main independent claim covers a computer method and system that: receives, from each participant, a set of ciphertexts that are encrypted polynomial shares of that participant's input and each ciphertext is tagged to a specific recipient; computes for each participant an encrypted partial value by homomorphically aggregating ciphertexts associated with that participant and encrypting that partial under the participant's public key; sends each encrypted partial to its participant; receives decrypted partials back; and computes a target aggregate from a subset of the decrypted partials.

Distinguishing feature: Using per-recipient encrypted polynomial shares and homomorphic aggregation at the central node to produce per-recipient encrypted partials that participants decrypt to enable fault-tolerant reconstruction in a star network.

Novelty 3/5. At filing time, homomorphic aggregation and secret-sharing were known; the patent combines per-recipient polynomial shares with central homomorphic combining to handle a star topology and tolerate missing participants, which is a practical improvement on known secure aggregation methods.

Implementation

A small team would implement this by using an additively homomorphic encryption scheme (Paillier or elliptic-curve ElGamal with appropriate group), or secret-share polynomials over a finite field; each client generates polynomial shares for every recipient, encrypts each share under that recipient's public key, and sends the bundle to the aggregator; the aggregator homomorphically adds the ciphertexts per recipient to produce encrypted partials, returns these to recipients, recipients decrypt and return plaintext partials, and the aggregator reconstructs the aggregate from a threshold subset (implement threshold reconstruction and missing-party handling in server logic).

Components: Central aggregator server with homomorphic-capable crypto library, participant devices (microcontrollers, phones) with public/private key pairs, network transport (TLS) for ciphertext exchange, finite-field arithmetic and polynomial-share routines.

Buildability 5/5. The engineering work is standard crypto and networking; the main work is correct finite-field/share bookkeeping, key management, and selecting/implementing a homomorphic primitive with acceptable performance.

Market demand

Comparable products exist; none doing exactly this was found. Several open-source efforts exist leveraging Bonawitz-style secure aggregation, pairwise masking, and encrypted shares; active research area with multiple independent implementations; competition and consolidation ongoing.

Demand check by web search, week of Oct 12, 2026. Listings change frequently.

Buyers: Utilities, healthcare analytics platforms, IoT fleet operators.

Before manufacturing

No related continuation or divisional patents in force were found. Design patents, trademarks and unrelated patents may still cover the product.

Performance and bandwidth cost of sending O(n) shares per participant and key management; related literature and patents in secure aggregation and homomorphic sums may cover similar approaches (not legal advice).

About 1.5% of lapsed patents are later revived by their owners. This page is a research lead, not legal advice. Obtain a freedom-to-operate opinion before manufacturing.

Claim 1, as granted

1. A computer-implemented method for facilitating encrypted-domain aggregation of data in a star network of physical devices, the method comprising: receiving, by a computing device comprising a microprocessor, a set of ciphertexts of an input value from each participant of a plurality of participants via the star network, wherein a respective participant in the plurality of participants comprises a microprocessor, wherein the set of ciphertexts from a first participant of a plurality of participants represents respective encrypted polynomial shares of the input value of the first participant, and wherein each ciphertext in the set of ciphertexts is associated with a specific participant in the plurality of participants; computing an encrypted partial value for the first participant by aggregating in the encrypted-domain a respective ciphertext associated with the first participant received from the plurality of participants, wherein the encrypted partial value is encrypted based on a public key of the first participant; sending a message comprising the encrypted partial value for each participant to the corresponding participant; receiving a decrypted partial value representing a decryption of the encrypted partial value from each participant; and computing a target value based on a subset of the set of decrypted partial values, wherein the subset corresponds to a subset of participants of the plurality of participants; wherein computing the target value further comprises: in response to the number of participants being greater than a threshold, determining a set of coefficients of a target polynomial; and evaluating the target polynomial based on a base value and the coefficients.