Neuralink Corp. is an American neurotechnology company that has developed, as of 2024, implantable brain–computer interfaces (BCIs). It was founded by Elon Musk and a team of seven scientists and engineers.

Elon Musk’s company, Neuralink, has reached a major milestone with its brain chip. The device, called “Blindsight,” is designed to help blind people regain their vision.

Neuralink announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given the implant a special status known as “breakthrough device.” This status allows it to join a program that supports fast-tracking of new medical technologies.

I personally find Neuralink's research and development nothing short of amazing if it the company can deliver the medical breakthroughs that they foresee. Today, Patently Mobile discovered a series of patents from Neuralink that some may want to explore. The first was published in July 2024.  

In mid-July the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a patent application / granted patent from Neuralink titled "Out-of-Band Pairing for Wireless Neural Implant."

In their patent background they noted that brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) hold tremendous promise for the restoration of sensory and motor function and the treatment of neurological disorders. Most of these applications require fine scale communication—at the level of individual neurons—with large numbers of neurons across multiple brain areas. Advanced neural interfaces will require increasing the number of accessible neurons by many orders of magnitude than what is available by current methods. Reading out information from all of these neurons can be problematic. There is a large amount of information in the form of currents and/or voltages that needs processing and communication to the outside world.

Traditionally, neural interfaces such as a BMI are used in a laboratory setting. In such a setting, the neural interface can communicate with outside devices using wires extending from the brain, and in some cases the brain is partially exposed surgically. However, it is desirable to have a neural interface without unwieldy wired connections. As neural interfaces advance and are developed with different goals, different modes of communicating with the outside world become desirable. One such method is via wireless communication.

Wireless communications have their own challenges, such as the security of the transmitted data. Attacks such as man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks are possible in wireless transmissions, which can allow an eavesdropper to intercept and decrypt encrypted communications. When transmitting data from the brain, or transmitting outputs from decoding neural data, security is particularly important. Thus, there is a need to securely transmit data to and from the brain wirelessly.

Out-of-Band Pairing for Wireless Neural Implant

Neuralink's patent covers systems and methods prevent attacks such as man-in-the-middle attacks during pairing between an implanted device such as a neural implant and an external device (also referred to herein as a first external device) such as a smartphone or laptop computer. The implanted device and the external device are configured to communicate over a wireless communication channel such as a Bluetooth? wireless network. Such communications can be secured via an out-of-band pairing confirmation.

For example, in one type of out-of-band pairing confirmation, a user may pair his smartphone to his car stereo, and confirm the pairing by viewing a code on the car stereo, verifying that it matches the code on the smartphone and confirming the match on both devices, and thus preventing attacks during the pairing of the two devices.

Alternatively, out-of-band protection can be performed via one device displaying a passkey, and the user inputting this value into another device. For example, pairing a Bluetooth keyboard to a computer, wherein the key board does not have a display, the computer could display a code, which is then typed into the key board by the user.

Unlike traditional out-of-band pairing, where a user can view and type in a confirmation code using traditional input and output such as a screen and keypad, the implanted device is enclosed in the body of the subject and does not include traditional inputs and outputs. The methods described herein can be used to perform an out-of-band check for implanted devices.

Even in the context of implanted devices, certain implants such as neural implants of a BMI are unique. The neural implant may be permanently or semi-permanently disposed beneath the skull of the subject and thus not easily accessible via certain communication channels. The techniques described herein address the unique application of an implanted device such as a neural implant when performing out-of-band pairing confirmation.

The pairing techniques described herein use one or more signals received by the neural implant via an out-of-band channel to perform pairing with an external device. In some embodiments, the signals are received via an external helper device, also referred to herein as a second external device, such as a charger or smart phone. The helper device transmits a pairing code via magnetic inductive coupling. The implanted device detects the magnetic field and decodes the pattern to identify the values. These values are used to verify that an attack (e.g., a MITM attack) is not present. Additionally, the implanted device may transmit the outcome of this match back to the helper device to communicate protection status for the implanted and external device.

In some embodiments, the signals are neural signals. For example, the external device may display a pairing code (e.g., numbers and/or letters), and the subject thinks about typing the values. As the user thinks of typing the values, neural signals are detected and processed. In some embodiments, the subject may simply visualize the displayed pairing code, an event which will generate neural signals which can be detected directly. The implanted device identifies the values, which are used to perform secure pairing which is not vulnerable to MITM attacks.

Neuralink's patent FIG. 1 below is a perspective view of a system #100 including an implanted device #102 and an external device 106. The implanted device may be a neural implant implanted in a brain #112 of the subject #110.

Neuralink's patent FIG. 2 below is a sectional side-view of the implanted device  of FIG. 1. The implanted device includes circuitry #204, which may be in the form of custom, low-power integrated circuit (IC) chips for on-board amplification and digitization of data (e.g., neural signals). The implanted device gathers data from flexible electrodes #202 that have been implanted into the brain of the subject. The electrodes may be thin film electrodes, sometimes numbering in the hundreds or thousands, inserted into the cortex at precise locations to avoid vasculature. The components of the implanted device can be enclosed in a biocompatible case #220.

Neuralink's patent FIG. 5 above is a schematic diagram illustrating key exchange for device pairing with an adversary performing a man-in-the-middle attack, and how an out-of-band pairing confirmation can detect the attack.

For full details, review U.S. patent application 20240232340.

Other Related Neuralink Patents

01: Capacitive Shield for Charger Artifact Reduction for Implants

02: Pivoting Surgical Implant Placement Tool

03: Brain Implant with Subcutaneous Wireless Relay and External Wearable Communications and Power Device.