Cloud computing rests on an awkward bargain: you hand your data to someone else's computer because they can process it more cheaply or capably than you can. The unstated cost is trust — the provider, or anyone who compromises it, can in principle see what you sent. For sensitive workloads that bargain is unacceptable, which is the entire motivation for privacy-preserving computation.
US11687667B2, “Privacy-preserving computing with third-party service,” granted to Amazon Technologies, Inc. on June 27, 2023, names the problem in its title. Classified under H04L 9/008 (homomorphic encryption) with G06F 21/6227, it claims using a third-party service without disclosing the data to it.
The interesting framing is “third-party service.” This is not abstract two-party cryptography; it is the concrete cloud topology where a customer wants to use a provider's computation while the provider — the third party — remains untrusted with the plaintext. That is precisely the position a hyperscaler occupies, and it is striking to see the provider itself patent the mechanism for not being trusted with the data it processes.
The named inventor Eric Crockett recurs across Amazon's homomorphic-encryption filings, which is a useful signal that this sits in a real internal program rather than being a one-off. Amazon's broader work on cryptographic computing — including its homomorphic-encryption tooling — is the plausible context for why AWS would want IP on letting customers compute without exposing data.
Per the desk's rules: issued grant (B2), not an application; a method claim, not a confirmed product. A cloud provider patenting privacy-preserving outsourced computation does not mean the feature is generally available — it means the technique is staked.
For the strategy reader, the meta-point is notable: the cloud incumbents are patenting the cryptography that would let them say “you don't have to trust us.” Whether framed as confidential computing, homomorphic encryption, or privacy-preserving services, the providers are building — and defending — the IP that addresses the central objection to their own business model.