The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 23, 2004
Filed:
Mar. 28, 2000
Roger A. Smith, Austin, TX (US);
Mauricio Breternitz, Jr., Austin, TX (US);
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., Austin, TX (US);
Abstract
Method of monitoring a secure encrypted communication, where the encryption key(s) is recovered by an escrow center having a master and multiple agents and the master receives the key encrypted using a mask scheme. Independent random masks are generated, which are then used to create dependent masks for each agent. The agents receive the mask information but no key information. The agents decide whether to allow the interception of an encrypted message. In response to the agents' decisions, the master is either enabled to recover the key or prevented from recovering the key. Encrypted key information is only available to the master. Multiple combinations of agents will provide sufficient information to the master to recover the key, avoiding the hold-out problems of the prior art. In one embodiment, multiple masters provide back-up protection when a master is unavailable.