Patent 7668316 was granted and assigned to Samsung on February, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A method of encrypting metadata that can be represented by a tree structure. The method involves generating an encryption key for a predetermined node of the metadata using a function that takes as input parameters an encryption key for an upper node of the predetermined node and information specifying the predetermined node, and encrypting data of the predetermined node using the generated encryption key.