Systems and Methods for Secure Transaction Management and Electronic Rights Protection
Abstract
The present invention provides systems and methods for secure transaction management and electronic rights protection. Electronic appliances such as computers equipped in accordance with the present invention help to ensure that information is accessed and used only in authorized ways, and maintain the integrity, availability, and/or confidentiality of the information. Such electronic appliances provide a distributed virtual distribution environment (VDE) that may enforce a secure chain of handling and control, for example, to control and/or meter or otherwise monitor use of electronically stored or disseminated information. Such a virtual distribution environment may be used to protect the rights of various participants in electronic commerce and other electronic or electronic-facilitated transactions. Distributed and other operating systems, environments, and architectures, such as, for example, those using tamper-resistant, hardware-based processors, may establish security at each node. These techniques may be used to support an all-electronic information distribution utilizing the "electronic highway." In general, the present invention can be used to protect the rights of parties who have proprietary or confidentiality interests in electronic information (it can help ensure that information is used only in authorized ways); the rights of parties who have financial interests resulting from the use of electronically distributed information (it can help ensure that content providers will be paid for the use of distributed information); and the rights of parties who have interests in electronic credit and electronic currency storage, communication, and/or use, including electronic cash, banking, and purchasing. VDE protects the property rights of authors of electronic content, the commercial rights of distributors of content, the privacy rights of users of content, and the privacy rights of parties portrayed by stored and/or distributed content.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 30, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA423264
Entities
People
- David M. Van Wie
- Francis J. Spahn
- Karl L. Ginter
- Victor H. Shear