US Patent Issued to UT-Battelle on Sept. 23 for "Authentication of smart grid communications using quantum key distribution" (Tennessee Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 23 -- United States Patent no. 12,425,202, issued on Sept. 23, was assigned to UT-Battelle LLC (Oak Ridge, Tenn.).

"Authentication of smart grid communications using quantum key distribution" was invented by Muneer Alshowkan (Oak Ridge, Tenn.), Philip G. Evans (Clinton, Tenn.), Michael Starke (Knoxville, Tenn.) and Nicholas A. Peters (Knoxville, Tenn.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Systems, methods, and computer-readable programs are provided for authentication of unencrypted message(s) transmitted between two devices of a power grid over a public communications network are provided. The authentication uses a quantum-based secret key and an initialization vector generat...