Patents by Inventor Graeme Harkness

Graeme Harkness has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 9081962
    Abstract: Anti-tamper techniques for protecting a program code portion against tampering provide for defining a sequence of code segments having a root-code segment and a plurality of sub-code segment. Each sub-code segment is provided with an integrity checking portion for checking the integrity of a target code segment. At runtime, the integrity checking portion of a given sub-code segment carries out a checking procedure on the respective target code segment to obtain a runtime result which is compared with a reference result to verify that the target portion of the program has not been tampered with.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2009
    Date of Patent: July 14, 2015
    Inventor: Graeme Harkness
  • Patent number: 8407523
    Abstract: In order to protect a software program, at least one corruption function is included in the program. Also included in the program is at least one instruction that causes the program to be directed to the corruption function. An available breakpoint is then set such that, when the starting location of the corruption function is reached, an exception is generated and the handling of the exception causes the corruption function not to run. This has the effect that, if a malicious user attempts to use the available hardware breakpoint to perform unauthorized actions on the software program, the corruption function will run, and the software program will be unusable.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 2, 2009
    Date of Patent: March 26, 2013
    Assignee: ITI Scotland Limited
    Inventors: Neil Stewart, Graeme Harkness
  • Publication number: 20090307536
    Abstract: In order to protect a software program, at least one corruption function is included in the program. Also included in the program is at least one instruction that causes the program to be directed to the corruption function. An available breakpoint is then set such that, when the starting location of the corruption function is reached, an exception is generated and the handling of the exception causes the corruption function not to run. This has the effect that, if a malicious user attempts to use the available hardware breakpoint to perform unauthorized actions on the software program, the corruption function will run, and the software program will be unusable.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 2, 2009
    Publication date: December 10, 2009
    Inventors: Neil Stewart, Graeme Harkness
  • Publication number: 20090276857
    Abstract: Anti-tamper techniques for protecting a program code portion against tampering provide for defining a sequence of code segments having a root-code segment and a plurality of sub-code segment. Each sub-code segment is provided with an integrity checking portion for checking the integrity of a target code segment. At runtime, the integrity checking portion of a given sub-code segment carries out a checking procedure on the respective target code segment to obtain a runtime result which is compared with a reference result to verify that the target portion of the program has not been tampered with.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 30, 2009
    Publication date: November 5, 2009
    Inventor: Graeme Harkness