Patent ID: 8903090

Claim:
A method for securely decoding data, the method comprising a computer system associated with a first party performing steps of: obtaining from a second party an encrypted model of a process for decoding data, wherein the encrypted model is a state machine-based model defined by one or more model parameters and wherein the one or more model parameters are encrypted so that the first party cannot learn the model parameters; utilizing the encrypted model parameters of the encrypted model to determine cost values which represent a particular sequence of observed outputs associated with a given data set of information that the first party wants to maintain as confidential and personal, which is to be decoded using the state machine-based model, without revealing content of the data set to the second party; sending to the second party the cost values; obtaining from the second party at least one index of a minimum cost value determined by the second party from the cost values sent thereto; and determining, as a most likely sequence for the given data set, a minimum cost sequence resulting from the at least one index; wherein the steps of obtaining, utilizing, sending, obtaining and determining are performed by the computer system executing program code, which is associated with the first party.