DOL fiduciary rule, Supreme Court Intel case, reshape 401(k) alternatives

JD Supra published analysis on a proposed Department of Labor rule and pending Supreme Court case that could reshape fiduciary standards for alternative investments in 401(k) plans. The DOL proposal would establish a safe harbor for offering alternatives by focusing on process-based compliance over investment outcomes, while the Supreme Court's review of Andersson v. Intel Corp. could clarify proof standards for fiduciary liability.

Managing Data Encryption During System Upgrades - Red Hat Patent

The USPTO granted Patent US12598065B2 to Red Hat, Inc. covering a system for managing data encryption during system upgrades. The patent contains 20 claims related to detecting component upgrades on computing devices with encrypted data, deactivating links between PCR values and decryption keys prior to boot, provisioning alternative network server links for key authorization, and updating PCR values post-boot.

History access for end-to-end (E2E) secure content

USPTO granted Patent No. US12598061B2 to Cisco Technology Inc. for a method enabling secure access to historical cryptographic keys by new joiners to encrypted conversations. The invention uses an encrypted skip list that can be stored on untrusted servers, providing logarithmic complexity random access and log-scale overhead for linear access to conversation content.

Methods and systems for a 2-qubit multi-user quantum key distribution protocol

USPTO granted Patent US12598062B2 to Huawei Technologies Canada Co., Ltd. covering a method of quantum key distribution using 2-qubit entanglement among three parties (operator O, Alice, and Bob) for multi-user QKD. The patent includes 12 claims related to qubit measurement, encoding, CHSH inequality verification, and quantum key reconciliation.

End-to-end transport layer security

The USPTO granted Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. Patent US12598059B1 for end-to-end transport layer security. The invention covers methods for establishing session keys between start, end, and intermediate nodes for data encryption and MAC generation, with encrypted data relayed without intermediate node re-encryption. This is a standard patent grant conferring exclusive rights to the assignee.

Distributed encryption key allocation - Zoom Communications

USPTO granted patent US12598060B2 to Zoom Communications, Inc. for a distributed encryption key allocation system enabling customers of a communications platform to control their own encryption keys for encrypting and decrypting data including conference recordings, voicemails, emails, and calendar tokens. The patent covers a key broker server mapping encryption requests to customer key management servers based on user identifiers.

Systems and methods for distributed trust model and framework

USPTO granted Patent US12598071B2 to Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. covering a distributed trust management system for network communication ecosystems. The patent includes 20 claims directed to trust specification, analysis, evaluation, and monitoring engines for managing trust relationships between participating entities in a network.

Clock security for statistical object generation

The USPTO granted Invisinet Technologies LLC Patent US12598063B2 for clock security methods in cryptographic keying information generation. The patent covers operating an activation agent to access clock values and generate keying information including clock offsets and async reset values through an object activation service.

Monitoring in distributed computing system

USPTO granted Mastercard International Inc. Patent US12598069B2 covering methods and systems for monitoring services in distributed computing environments. The patent, with 20 claims, describes coordinated monitoring processes where computing nodes track service performance and share monitoring information across the distributed system. The patent was filed on July 2, 2024, establishing intellectual property rights in distributed monitoring technology.

System for learning new visual inspection tasks using a few-shot meta-learning method

USPTO granted patent US12597232B2 to Hitachi, Ltd. covering a system and method for few-shot meta-learning to enable visual inspection models to adapt to new domains with minimal labeled training data. The patent describes processing labeled and unlabeled images through multiple backbone snapshots, extracting features, and generating representative models through clustering and transformation techniques. This machine learning patent covers neural network architectures applicable to automated quality control and inspection systems.