Patent Application
20140380408
These inventions generally relate to optimally bringing the efficiencies of modern computing and networking to the administration and support of electronic interactions and consequences and further relate to a secure architecture enabling distributed, trusted administration for electronic commerce.
These inventions relate, in more detail, to a “Distributed Commerce Utility”—a foundation for the administration and support of electronic commerce and other electronic interaction and relationship environments.
In still more detail, these inventions generally relate to:
Efficient, effective societies require capabilities enabling their inhabitants to control the nature and consequences of their participation in interactions. Every community needs certain basic services, facilities and installations:
These and other important “behind the scenes” administrative and support services provide an underlying base or foundation that makes the conveniences and necessities of modern life as we know it possible and efficient, and allow the wheels of commerce to spin smoothly.
Suppose you want to buy bread at the local bakery. The baker doesn't have to do everything involved in making the bread because he can rely on support and administration services the community provides. For example:
Support and administrative services are also very important to ensure that people are compensated for their efforts. For example:
Such support and administrative services provide great economies in terms of scale and scope—making our economy much more efficient. For example, these important support and administrative services allow the baker to concentrate on what he knows how to do best—make and bake bread. It is much more efficient for a bakery and its experienced bakers to make many loaves of bread in its large commercial ovens than it is for individual families to each bake individual loaves in their own home ovens, or for the growers of grain to also bake the bread and pump the fuel needed for baking and accept barter, for example, chickens in exchange for the bread. As a result, you and the bakery can complete your purchasing transaction with a credit card because both you and the bakery have confidence that such a payment system works well and can be trusted to “automatically” function as a highly efficient and convenient basis for non-cash transactions.
There is now a worldwide electronic community. Electronic community participants need the ability to shape, control, and, in an electronic world, automate, their interactions. They badly need reliable, secure, trusted support and administrative services.
More and more of the world's commerce is being carried on electronically. The Internet—a massive electronic network of networks that connects millions of computers worldwide—is being used increasingly as the vehicle for commerce transactions. Fueled largely by easy-to-use interfaces (e.g., those allowing customers to “point and click” on items to initiate purchase and then to complete a simple form to convey credit card information), the Internet is rapidly becoming a focal point for consumer and business to business purchases. It is also becoming a significant “channel” for the sale and distribution of all kinds of electronic properties and services, including information, software, games, and entertainment.
At the same time, large companies use both private and public data networks to connect with their suppliers and customers. Driven by apparently inexorable declines in the cost of both computing power and network capacity, electronic commerce will increase in importance as the world becomes more and more computerized. This new electronic community—with its widespread electronic commerce—is generating great new demands for electronic administrative, support and “clearing” services.
The electronic community badly needs a foundation that will support both commercial and personal electronic interactions and relationships. Electronic commerce on any significant scale will require a dependable, efficient, scaleable, and secure network of third party support and administrative service providers and mechanisms to facilitate important parts of the transaction process. For example:
An important cornerstone of successful electronic transaction management and commerce is therefore the development and operation of a set of administrative and support services that support these objectives and facilitate the emergence of more diverse, flexible, scaleable, and efficient business models for electronic commerce generally.
The above-referenced Ginter, et al. patent specification describes technology providing unique, powerful capabilities instrumental to the development of secure, distributed transaction-based electronic commerce and rights management. This technology can enable many important, new business models and business practices on the part of electronic commerce participants while also supporting existing business models and practices.
The Ginter et al. specification describes comprehensive overall systems and wide arrays of methods, techniques, structures and arrangements that enable secure, efficient distributed electronic commerce and rights management on the Internet (and Intranets), within companies large and small, in the living room, and in the home office. Such techniques, systems and arrangements bring about an unparalleled degree of security, reliability, efficiency and flexibility to electronic commerce and electronic rights management.
The Ginter, et al. patent specification also describes an “Information Utility”—a network of support and administrative services, facilities and installations that grease the wheels of electronic commerce and support electronic transactions in this new electronic community. For example, Ginter, et al. details a wide array of support and administrative service providers for interfacing with and supporting a secure “Virtual Distribution Environment.” These support and administrative service providers include:
The present inventions build on the fundamental concepts described in the Ginter, et al. patent specification while extending those inventions to provide further increases in efficiency, flexibility and capability. They provide an overlay of distributed electronic administrative and support services (the “Distributed Commerce Utility”). They can, in their preferred embodiments, use and take advantage of the “Virtual Distribution Environment” (and other capabilities described in the Ginter et al patent specification and may be layered on top of and expand on those capabilities.
The present inventions provide an integrated, modular array of administrative and support services for electronic commerce and electronic rights and transaction management. These administrative and support services supply a secure foundation for conducting financial management, rights management, certificate authority, rules clearing, usage clearing, secure directory services, and other transaction related capabilities functioning over a vast electronic network such as the Internet and/or over organization internal Intranets, or even in-home networks of electronic appliances.
These administrative and support services can be adapted to the specific needs of electronic commerce value chains. Electronic commerce participants can use these administrative and support services to support their interests, and can shape and reuse these services in response to competitive business realities.
The present inventions provide a “Distributed Commerce Utility” having a secure, programmable, distributed architecture that provides administrative and support services. The Distributed Commerce Utility can make optimally efficient use of commerce administration resources, and can scale in a practical fashion to accommodate the demands of electronic commerce growth.
The Distributed Commerce Utility may comprise a number of Commerce Utility Systems. These Commerce Utility Systems provide a web of infrastructure support available to, and reusable by, the entire electronic community and/or many or all of its participants.
Different support functions can be collected together in hierarchical and/or in networked relationships to suit various business models and/or other objectives. Modular support functions can be combined in different arrays to form different Commerce Utility Systems for different design implementations and purposes. These Commerce Utility Systems can be distributed across a large number of electronic appliances with varying degrees of distribution.
The comprehensive “Distributed Commerce Utility” provided by the present invention:
In sum, the Distributed Commerce Utility provides comprehensive, integrated administrative and support services for secure electronic commerce and other forms of electronic interaction.
Some of the advantageous features and characteristics of the Distributed Commerce Utility provided by the present inventions include the following:
The support and administrative service functions provided by the Distributed Commerce Utility can be combined in various ways and/or distributed through an electronic community, system or network. The preferred embodiment uses the protected processing environment based Virtual Distribution Environment described in Ginter et al. to facilitate such combinations and distributedness. Since all such Virtual Distribution Environment protected processing environments are at least to some degree trusted, every protected processing environment can be a clearinghouse or a part of a clearinghouse. Commerce models acceptable to the interest and desires of VDE commerce node users, can support Distributed Commerce Utility services that are pushed all the way to end-user electronic appliances employing, for example, other VDE protected processing environments, secure communication techniques and other VDE capabilities (as discussed elsewhere VDE capabilities can be directly integrated with the present inventions). Such appliances, along with more centralized value chain nodes can together form combinations that function as virtual clearing protected processing environments. In the end, cyberspace will be populated, in part, by big, “virtual” computers where access to resources is based upon “availability” and rights.
The Distributed Commerce Utility is a modular, programmable and generalizable context that it can support such virtual computers. The Distributed Commerce Utility is a unique architectural foundation for the design of electronic commerce value chain models and virtual computers. The programmable nature of a particular implementation can support differing actual (logical and/or physical), and/or degrees of, distribution for the same and/or similar services For example:
Such distributed support services may complement (and/or eliminate the need for) more centralized support service installations. Different combinations of the same and/or differing, non-distributed and differently distributed services may be provided to support different activities. Moreover, the nature and distribution of services for one overall model may differ from one implementation to another. Such differing model implementations can, if desired, share both the same Commerce Utility Systems and Services and/or any particular and/or any combination of Distributed Commerce Utility administrative and/or support functions.
Further, a particular Commerce Utility Systems and Service infrastructure may be used by differing value chains (e.g., business model or relationship set) in differing manners. For example, certain value chains may elect to keep certain support service functions more centralized for efficiency, security, control or other reasons, others may elect more and/or differently distributed models.
Provided that, for example, payment methods and rightsholders and/or other value chain participants concur, any one or more of the Distributed Commerce Utility secure infrastructure support services may distribute and/or delegate a portion or all of their functions and authority to any arbitrary collection or set of end-user and/or other value chain electronic appliances. Distributing and delegating these services and functions has various advantages including, for example, enabling flexible and efficient creation of temporary, ad hoc webs of secure electronic commerce in which any, a number, or all appliance(s) in the collection or set may participate as at least a partial (if not full) peer of other appliances in the same commerce web fabric.
The present invention provides the following non-exhaustive list of additional features relating to distributing administrative and support functions:
This ability to distribute, and, if desired to subsequently adapt (modify), any support service functions to any desired degree across a system or network provides great power, flexibility and increases in efficiency. For example, distributing aspects of support services such as clearing functions will help avoid the “bottlenecks” that a centralized clearing facility would create if it had insufficient capacity to handle the processing loads. Taking advantage of the distributed processing power of many value chain participant appliances also has great benefits in terms of improved effectiveness and system response time, much lower overhead of operation, greater fault tolerance, versatility in application implementations, and, in general much greater value chain appeal resulting from the present inventions adaptability to each value chain participant's needs and requirements.
Some Examples of Administrative and/or Support Services Provided by the Distributed Commerce Utility
The Distributed Commerce Utility may be organized into a number of different, special and/or general purpose “Commerce Utility Systems.” The Commerce Utility Systems can be centralized, distributed, or partially distributed and partially centralized to provide administrative, security, and other services that practical commerce management layer requires. Certain Commerce Utility Systems comprise Distributed Commerce Utility implementations of certain well known administrative service functions, such as financial clearinghouse and certifying authorities. Other Commerce Utility Systems involve new forms of services and new combinations and designs for well known service activities. A Commerce Utility System is any instanstiation of the Distributed Commerce Utility supporting a specific electronic commerce model, and a Commerce Utility System may itself be comprised of constituent Commerce Utility Systems. Commerce Utility Systems may include any or all of the following, in any combination of capabilities and distribution designs, for example:
These Commerce Utility Systems are far-reaching in their utility and applicability. For example they may provide administrative support for any or all of the following:
The Commerce Utility Systems may govern electronic process chains and electronic event consequences related to, for example:
These and other features and advantages provided by the present inventions will become better and more completely understood by studying the following detailed description of presently preferred example embodiments in conjunction with the drawings, of which:
FIGS. 17A through 17D-3 show an example Commerce Utility System architecture;
Distributed Commerce Utility 75 provides a foundation of administrative and support services for electronic commerce and communications. This foundation is efficient, cost effective, flexible, configurable, reusable, programmable and generalizable. It supports all kinds of electronic relationships, interactions and communications for both personal and business use.
Appliance 100 may be any sort of electrical or electronic device such as for example, a computer, an entertainment system, a television set, or a video player—just to name a few examples. In the particular example shown in
The Appliance 100 can have a “Protected Processing Environment”
Appliance 100 preferably is a secure electronic appliance of the type shown for example in FIGS. 7 and 8 of the Ginter et al. patent specification. It is preferably part of the “Virtual Distribution Environment” described in the Ginter, et al. patent specification.
Protected processing environments 154 may be based on one or more computer chips, such as a hardware and/or software based “secure processing unit” as shown in FIG. 9 of the Ginter et al. patent specification. The protected processing environment 154 provides a highly secure, trusted environment in which electronic processes and transactions can be reliably performed without significant danger of tampering or other compromise. The Ginter et al. patent disclosure describes techniques, systems and methods for designing, constructing and maintaining the protected processing environment 154 so that rights holders and other value chain participants (including consumers 95) can trust its security and integrity. In the preferred embodiment, this trustedness is important in the interaction between the Distributed Commerce Utility 75 and electronic appliance 100.
Commerce Utility Systems 90 can support and administer functions or operations within protected processing environment(s) 154. For example:
Other Commerce Utility Systems 90 shown in
Still other Commerce Utility Systems 90 not shown in
As described above, appliances 100 each provide a protected processing environment 154 that is tamper resistant and provides a secure place in which administrative and support operations can be performed. This allows an electronic appliance 100 within a consumer's home to perform operations that can trusted by other parties, such as rights holders, electronic commerce participants, and the like. Because of the trusted, protected characteristics of protected processing environment 154, the parts, extensions or even the entirety of a Commerce Utility System 90 may exist within each or any of the protected processing environments 154 and associated electronic appliances within the overall system.
Alternately or in addition, some of the functions of the Commerce Utility System 90 may be distributed within network 150—for example, in the equipment used to communicate data between appliances 100.
For example:
Taking this concept of distributed clearing services further, it would be possible to completely distribute the Distributed Commerce Utility 75 as shown in FIG. 3C—relying mostly or completely on administrative and support service operations and activities within the secure, protected processing environments 154 of users' electronic appliances 100. Thus, the users' own electronic appliances 100 could—in a distributed manner—perform any or all of financial, usage, and rights and permissions clearing, as well as certification, secure directory services and transaction authority services. Such “local” and/or parallel and/or distributed processing transaction clearing might more efficiently accommodate the needs of individual consumers. For example, this is one way of allowing consumers to contribute controls that prevent certain private data from ever leaving their own electronic appliance while nevertheless providing rightsholders with the summary information they require.
The distributed arrangements shown in
Since a given electronic appliance 100 can participate in multiple activities, it is possible that its different activities may rely on different blends of distributed and centralized Commerce Utility Systems 90. For example, for one activity a protected processing environment 154 may rely on a centralized financial clearinghouse 200, for another activity it may rely on a partially distributed and partially centralized financial clearinghouse 200, and for still another activity it may rely on a wholly distributed financial clearinghouse 200. Different degrees of distributedness may be used for different activities or business models.
In this example, the same Distributed Commerce Utility 75 can support a variety of different kinds of activities of a number of different consumers, authors, distributors, providers, merchants, and other people—and the Distributed Commerce Utility 75 can support a very large variety of different electronic activities.
The Commerce Utility Systems 90 web may provide a very complex interconnection with a variety of different types of electronic appliances performing a variety of different electronic functions and transactions. As mentioned above, any of electronic appliances 100 may be able to communicate with any of the Commerce Utility Systems 90 or with any other electronic appliance. This allows maximum efficiency and flexibility in terms of allocating different Commerce Utility Systems to different electronic transactions. For example:
Because electronic network 150 may connect electronic appliances 100 to many different Commerce Utility Systems 90, rightsholders in the digital properties the consumers are using may have a number of different Commerce Utility Systems to choose from. Content providers and rights holders may authorize particular (or groups of) Commerce Utility Systems 90 to handle different aspects of transactions. For example:
In some instances, particular consumers 95 may also pay a role in specifying in advance particular clearinghouses or other Commerce Utility Systems 90 they prefer to use.
A content provider or rights holder could allow a consumer 95 to select from a group of Commerce Utility Systems 90 (and/or Commerce Utility Systems 90 providers) the content provider/rights holder wants to deal with. For example:
This example shows that various Commerce Utility Systems 90 may operate in combination, and that different combinations of Commerce Utility Systems might be used to support different electronic transactions.
Administrative and Support Service Functions can be Combined within General Purpose Commerce Utility Systems for Efficiency or Convenience
A consumer operating electronic appliances 100 may access any or all of these different Commerce Utility Systems 90 or combinations. For example, set top box 106 might obtain rights and permissions and certificates from Helen's Commerce Utility System 90c, but might make use of Bob's Commerce Utility System 90a for financial clearing and usage analysis.
A Commerce Utility System 90 may provide any combination of administrative and support functions or subfunctions as may be desirable to perform the operations required in certain business models, provide maximum efficiency, and/or maximize convenience. For example, Anne's Commerce Utility System 90(2) might provide only a specialized subset of financial clearinghouse function
Consumer and user appliances 100 are shown as standing-up rectangular columns in the diagram. Electronic network 150 is shown as a road which connects the various Commerce Utility Systems to one another and to consumer electronic appliances 100. Electronic digital containers 152 may be carried along this electronic network or “information highway” 150 between different electronic installations.
The various examples shown in
In one example arrangement, the Commerce Utility Systems 90 to which authority has been delegated may perform substantially all of the actual support work, but may keep the more over arching Commerce Utility Systems 90 informed through reporting or other means. In another arrangement, the over arching Commerce Utility Systems 90 have no involvement whatsoever with day to day activities of the Commerce Utility Systems to whom they have delegated work. In still another example arrangement, the more specialized Commerce Utility Systems do some of the work and the more overarching Commerce Utility Systems do other parts of the work. The particular division of work and authority used in a particular scenario may largely depend on factors such as efficiency, trustedness, resource availability, the kinds of transactions being managed, and a variety of other factors. Delegation of clearing authority may be partial (e.g., delegate usage aggregation but not financial or rights management responsibilities), and may be consistent with peer-to-peer processing (e.g., by placing some functions within consumers' electronic appliances while keeping some more important functions centralized).
On the next level down, Commerce Utility Systems might be type A Commerce Utility System (such as, 90(3)(1) and 90(3)(2)), they might be type B Commerce Utility Systems (such as, 90(3)(4)), they might be type C Commerce Utility Systems (such as, 90(3)(5), 90(3)(6)), or they might be hybrids—such as, Commerce Utility System 90(3)(3) which is a hybrid having type A and type B functions.
A rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 might break out along content types (e.g., movies; scientific, technical and medical; and software). Subtype A might include first run movies, oldies, and art films; subtype B might handle journals and textbooks; and type C might be responsible for games, office, educational content. Peer-to-peer communications between clearinghouses could involve multimedia presentation permissions (e.g., a multimedia presentation might have permissions stored at one clearinghouse that uses a back channel to other clearinghouses to ensure that the latest permissions are distributed).
As described above, Commerce Utility Systems 90 are generalized and programmable—and can therefore provide a mix of different support and administration functions to meet requirements of a given transaction. Thus, many or most Commerce Utility Systems 90 as actually implemented may provide a range of different support and administrative functions that may make it difficult to categorize the implementation as being of one particular “kind” of Commerce Utility System as opposed to another.
Nevertheless, certain types of idealized specialized Commerce Utility Systems 90 are particularly useful for a wide range of models, transactions and applications. It is helpful and convenient to describe some of the characteristics of these “pure” Commerce Utility Systems of different types—recognizing that actual implementations may mix functions or function subsets from several of these idealized models. The following are brief vignettes of some of the characteristics of such “pure” idealized Commerce Utility Systems.
In this example, financial clearinghouse 200 may communicate with appliance protected processing environment 154 over electronic network 150 in a secure manner using electronic containers 152 of the type described, for example, in the Ginter et al. patent specification in connection with
Financial clearinghouse 200 may, for example, interact with a consumer's bank 206a, a provider's bank 206b and a consumer's credit card company 206c. For example, financial clearinghouse 200 can debit funds from the consumer's bank 206a and credit funds to the rights holder's bank 206b to pay for the consumers' watching of a movie, television program or other content. Additionally or alternately, financial clearinghouse 200 may interact with a consumer's credit card company 206c to request credit checks, obtain credit authorizations, payments and the like.
Financial clearinghouse 200 may provide payment statement statements 204 to consumers 95—for example, by transmitting the statements to appliance 100 in a secure electronic container 152b to preserve the confidentiality of the statement information. In this example, consumers 95 can view the statements 204 using their appliance 100 protected processing environment 154, and may also be able to print or save them for record-keeping purposes.
In one example, the payment mechanism 118 provided by protected processing environment 154 might be an electronic wallet supplying electronic money for use in paying for electronic services or content. This electronic wallet may hold money in digital form. Consumers 95 can spend the digital money on whatever they wish. When the electronic wallet is empty, consumers 95 can have the financial clearinghouse 200 replenish the wallet by authorizing the financial clearinghouse to debit the funds from the consumers' account in their bank 206a. Financial clearinghouse 200 may process electronic money payments, arrange for the electronic wallet to be refilled automatically (based on the consumers' pre-authorization, for example) when the consumers have spent all of its former contents, and provide the consumers with detailed reports and statements 204 about how they have spent their electronic money.
For example, usage clearinghouse 300 may send the consumers 95 a detailed report 304a of all the movies, television programs and other material the consumers have watched over the last month. The communication between protected processing environment 154 and usage clearinghouse 300 may be in the form of secure containers 152. As described in the Ginter et al. patent disclosure, usage meter 116 can meter use on the basis of a number of different factors, and can range from being extremely detailed to being turned off altogether. The consumers, if they desire, could view the detailed usage report 304a on their television set 102.
Usage clearinghouse 300 can report to others about the consumers' viewing habits consistent with protecting the consumers' privacy. These reports can also be sent within secure containers 152. For example, usage clearinghouse 300 might provide a summary report 304b to advertisers 306 that does not reveal the consumers' identity but provides the advertisers with valuable information about the consumers' viewing habits. On the other hand, with the consumers' consent, usage clearinghouse 300 could provide a more detailed report revealing the consumers' identity to advertisers 306 or to other specified people. In return, the consumers 95 could be given incentives, such as, for example, discounts, cash, free movies, or other compensation.
Usage clearinghouse 300 can also issue reports 304c to rights holders 308—such as the producer or director of the video program 102a the consumers 95 are watching. These reports allow the rights holders to verify who has watched their program material and other creations. This can be very useful in ensuring payment, or in sending the consumers other, similar program material they may be interested in.
Usage clearinghouse 300 might also send reports 304d to a ratings company 310 for the purpose of automatically rating the popularity of certain program material. Usage clearinghouse 300 might also send reports to other market researchers 312 for scientific, marketing or other research.
In this example, rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 may act as a centralized “repository” or clearinghouse for rights associated with digital content. For example, broadcasters, authors, and other content creators and rights owners can register permissions with the rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 in the form of electronic “control sets.” These permissions can specify what consumers can and can't do with digital properties, under what conditions the permissions can be exercised and the consequences of exercising the permissions. Rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 can respond to requests 402 from electronic appliance protected processing environment 154 by delivering permissions (control sets) 188 in response.
For example, suppose that consumers 95 want to watch a concert or a fight on television set 102. They can operate their remote control unit 108 to request the right to watch a certain program. Protected processing environment 154 may automatically contact rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 over electronic network 150 and send an electronic request 402. The rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 can “look up” the request in its library or repository to see if it has received (and is authorized to provide) the necessary permission 404b from the program's rights holder 400. It may then send the requested permission 188 to protected processing environment 154.
For example, permission 188 might allow the consumers to view the concert or fight only once and prohibit its copying with copy protection mechanism 120. Permission 188 may also (or in addition) specify the price for watching the program (for example, $5.95 to be deducted from the consumers' electronic wallet). Appliance 100 can ask the consumers 95 if they want to pay $5.95 to watch the program. If they answer “yes” (indicated, for example, by operating remote control 108), the appliance 100 can automatically debit the consumers' electronic wallet and “release” the program so the consumers can watch it.
Rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 can deliver permissions 188 within a secure container 152b that may optionally also contain the information controlled by the permissions—or permission 188 may arrive at a different time and over a different path than the program or other content travels to the appliance 100. For example, the permissions could be sent over network 150, whereas the program it is associated with may arrive directly from satellite 112 or over some other path such as cable television network 114 (see
Rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 may also issue reports 406 to rights holders or other people indicating which permissions have been granted or denied. For example, the author of a book or video might, consistent with consumer privacy concerns, be able to learn the exact number of people who have requested the right to publish excerpts from his or her work. These kinds of reports can supplement reports provided by usage clearinghouse 300.
Certifying authority 500 issues digital certificates 504 that certify particular facts. Digital certificate 122 is like a driver's license or a high school diploma in some respects, since they each provide proof of a certain fact. For example, we may show our drivers' license to prove that we are old enough to vote, buy liquor, or watch an “R” rated movie. This same driver's license attests to the fact that we have a certain name and live at a certain address, and that we have certain knowledge (of state motor vehicle laws) and skills (the ability to maneuver a motor vehicle). Digital certificate 504 is similar to that aspect of a driver's license that confirms the identity of, and related facts pertaining to the licensee, except that it is made out of digital information instead of a laminated card.
In this example, certifying authority 500 may receive consumer requests and associated evidence 502, and may issue corresponding digital certificates 504 that certify particular facts. Certifying authority 500 may also receive evidence, credentials and possibly also certificate definitions from other people such as government authorities 506, professional organizations 508 and universities 510. As one example, the certifying authority 500 might receive birth certificate or other identity information from a government authority 506. Based on this identity information, the certifying authority 500 may prepare and issue a digital certificate 504 that attests to person's identity and age. The certifying authority 500 might also issue digital certificates 504 attesting to professional status, employment, country of residence, or a variety of other classes and categories based on various evidence and inputs from various people.
Certifying authority 500 may certify organizations and machines as well as people. For example, certifying authority 500 could issue a certificate attesting to the fact that Stanford University is an accredited institution of higher learning, or that the ACME Transportation Company is a corporation in good standing and is authorized to transport hazardous materials. Certifying authority 500 could also, for example, issue a certificate 504 to a computer attesting to the fact that the computer has a certain level of security or is authorized to handle messages on behalf of a certain person or organization.
Certifying authority 500 may communicate with protected processing environment 154 and with other parties by exchanging electronic containers 152. Electronic appliance 100's protected processing environment 154 may use the digital certificates 504 the certifying authority 500 issues to manage or exercise permissions 188 such as those issued by rights and permissions clearinghouse 400. For example, set top box 106 might automatically prevent any consumer under 17 years of age from watching certain kinds of program material, or it might provide a payment discount to students watching educational material—all based on certificates 504 issued by certifying authority 500.
For example, suppose consumers 95 want to electronically order a pizza from Joe's Pizza. They decide what kind of pizza they want (large cheese pizza with sausage and onions for example). However, they don't know Joe's Pizza's electronic address (which may be like an electronic phone number). Consumers 95 can use remote control 108 to input information about what they want to have looked up (“Joe's Pizza, Lakeville, Connecticut”). Protected processing environment 154 may generate a request 602 containing the identification information and send this request to secure directory services 600. It can send the request in a secure container 152a.
When secure directory services 600 receives the request 602, it may access a database to locate the requested information. Secure directory services 600 may have earlier obtained Joe's electronic address directly from Joe or otherwise. Secure directory services 600 may send the requested information back to appliance 100 in a response 604. Response 604 may also be in a secure container 152b. The consumers 95 can use this information to electronically send their order to Joe's Pizza—which can display on Joe's order terminal within a few seconds after the consumers send it. Joe may deliver to consumer 95 a piping hot cheese, sausage and onion pizza a few minutes later (by car—not electronically—since a physical pizza is much more satisfying than an electronic one).
Secure directory services 600 can help anyone connected to network 150 contact anyone else. As one example, secure directory services 600 can tell usage clearinghouse 300 how to find a financial clearinghouse 200 on network 150. Any electronic appliance 100 connected to network 150 could use secure directory services 150 to help contact any other electronic appliance.
As mentioned above, the request 602 to secure directory services 600 and the response 604 it sends back may be encased within secure containers 152 of the type described in the Ginter et al patent specification. The use of secure containers 152 helps prevent eavesdroppers from listening into the exchange between consumers 95 and secure directory services 600. This protects the consumers' privacy. The consumers 95 may not care if someone listens in to their pizza order, but may be much more concerned about protecting the fact that they are corresponding electronically with certain other people (e.g., doctors, banks, lawyers, or others they have a relationship of confidence and trust with). Secure containers 152 also help ensure that messages sent across network 150 are authentic and have not been altered. Electronic containers 152 allow Joe's Pizza to trust that the just-received pizza order actually came from consumers 95 (as opposed to someone else) and has not been altered, and the consumers can be relatively sure that no one will send Joe a fake pizza order in their name. The use of secure containers 152 and protected processing environment 154 in the preferred embodiment also ensures that the consumers 95 cannot subsequently deny that they actually placed the order with Joe's Pizza if they in fact did so.
In more detail, transaction authority 700 in this example monitors the status of an electronic transaction and/or process and maintains a secure, reliable record of what has happened so far and what still needs to happen for the overall transaction and/or process to complete. Transaction authority 700 may also, if desired, perform a more active role by, for example, generating requests for particular actions to occur. Transaction authority 700 may in some cases be the only participant in a complex transaction or process that “knows” all of the steps in the process. Transaction authority 700 can also electronically define an overall process based on electronic controls contributed by various participants in the process.
In this example, transaction authority 700 may assist the electronic mail order company to coordinate activities and make sure that all steps required to deliver the sweater are performed in an accurate and timely fashion. For example:
Of course, this example is for purposes of illustration only. Transaction authority 700 may be used for all kinds of different process control and automation such as, for example, handling electronic orders and sales, electronic data interchange (EDI), electronic contract negotiation and/or execution, electronic document delivery, inter and intra company transactions, and the secure electronic integration of business processes within or among business organizations—just to name a few of many useful applications.
VDE administrator 800 (see
In addition to supporting consumers 95, Commerce Utility Systems 90 can support other Commerce Utility Systems. This is shown in
The Commerce Utility Systems 90 described herein provide valuable, important services and functions. The operators of such services can and should be compensated for the services they provide. Financial Clearinghouse Commerce Utility Systems 200 can ensure that they and other support service providers receive this compensation without inconvenience to other electronic community and value chain participants.
In assisting or compensating value chain participants, a Commerce Utility System 90 may (based on pre-approved contractual arrangements) take its own portion or percentage to compensate it for the clearing services it provides Support services can be compensated based on a small portion of payment (i.e., a “micro-payment”) attributable to each electronic transaction (a “piece of the tick”). Providers may pass some or all of these fees along to their own value chain participants in various ways.
Several different classes of value chain participants may be called upon to compensate the Commerce Utility Systems 90, including:
Different Commerce Utility System 90s may cooperate to establish a common fee that they then divide among themselves. In another scenario, each Commerce Utility System 90 may independently charge for the value of its own services. There may be competition among different Commerce Utility System 90s based on quality of service and price—just as credit card companies now compete for providers' and consumers' business.
The Ginter et al. patent disclosure describes, at pages 180 and following, and shows in
For example, the preferred example Commerce Utility System 90 architecture provides a collection of service functions that the Rights Operating System may execute as applications. These service functions define a variety of useful tasks that any and/or all Commerce Utility Systems 90 may need to perform. These service functions are distributable, scaleable and reusable. They can be combined in various combinations and sub-combinations—depending upon business models, for example—to provide the overall functionality desired for any particular Commerce Utility System 90 implementation.
Referring first to
Commerce utility system descriptor 90A(1) may also be responsible for coordinating the action of service functions 90B. In this example, descriptor 90A is used to direct requests and other system actions to the appropriate service functions 90B, and to ensure that actions requiring more than one service function are coordinated by reconciling differences in interfaces, data types and the like that may exist between the service functions 90B—as well as helping to direct overall process flow amongst the various service functions 90B. A non-exhaustive list of examples of such service functions 90B include the following:
The object oriented design of the Commerce Utility System 90 architecture shown in
The application layer, which is comprised of service function layer 90-2 and service application component layer 90-3 (comprising components 90DA), may be, if desired, supported by a commerce utility support services layer 90-4. Commerce utility support services layer 90-4 may provide increased efficiency for large numbers of transactions. Such commerce utility support services 90-4 may include, for example:
In this example, service functions 90B are component based, and may make use of the reusable and component based service application components 90D. The service application components 90D typically perform steps of, or subfunctions of, service functions 90B. Each service application component 90D can have either or both of two parts:
a component 90-Ba that need not execute within protected processing environment 154; and
a secure component 90-Bb that needs to execute within protected processing environment 154.
In this example architecture, there may be a correspondence between components 90Da and components 90Db. For example, at least one component 90Da may correspond with at least one secure component 90Db. There may be a one-to-one correspondence between components 90-Da and components 90Db (as indicated in
For example, some administrative and/or support functions for performance by commerce utility systems 90 may involve use of both application level database functions as well as information protected by a protected processing environment (“PPE”) 154 in the preferred embodiment. A specific example of this might be the records of payment by a user of a financial clearinghouse 200. If the operator of such a financial clearinghouse 200 chose to keep payment history information in an application level database, but needed information protected by PPE 154 in order to accurately determine the current account status of a customer, implementing a service application component 90DA that coordinated the information in the application level database with information protected by PPE 154 and processed by service application component 90DB into a single object may significantly simplify the task of using this information in the context of a given service function 90B (e.g. a decision to extend additional credit). Furthermore, this example service application component may be reusable in other service functions 90B.
In another example, service application component 90DA might serve principally as an application level interface object to a corresponding PPE 154 object 90DB. For example, if a notary service function 90B requires the application of a digital signature, a service application component 90DA might principally provide an interface that transports information to, and receives information from, a corresponding service application component 90DB that performs essentially all of the actual work of creating and applying a digital signature. In addition, the application level service component 90DA might provide additional exception handling, protocol conversion, or other functions designed to help integrate capabilities more easily or in a different manner than originally designed for a service function 90B.
Although certain business needs and models may tend to inspire the use of certain combinations and collections of important service functions in almost any implementation, the Commerce Utility System 90 architecture is inherently flexible—allowing the implementer to freely mix and combine a variety of different service functions depending upon their needs. For example, it is useful to provide a Commerce Utility System 90 that functions as a “financial clearinghouse 200”—providing payment processing, communications, database management, and other related service functions. The Commerce Utility System architecture can provide such a “financial clearinghouse”—and is also inherently much more generalized and generalizable. For example, a particular Commerce Utility System 90 implementation of a “financial clearinghouse” could also combine “non-financial” service functions with financial service functions. The particular functions or sets of functions that are realized in any given Commerce Utility System 90 implementation depend upon the individual needs of the implementer—as dictated for example by business model(s) or functions.
The secure application components 90-3 described above may, in the preferred embodiment, include or comprise reciprocal control structures and associated rules and methods shown in FIGS. 41A-41D and 48 of the Ginter et al. patent application. These reciprocal control structures can be used to interlink different or the same control sets operating on the same or different Commerce Utility Systems 90 or other electronic appliances 100. Hence, each actor can have one or more reciprocal relationships with every other actor—with Commerce Utility System 90 involved in some role in some of the various actions.
The various Commerce Utility System 90 interaction models shown in
As mentioned above, the present inventions provide techniques for distributing the operation of a particular service function 90-2 or service application component 90-3 throughout a system 50 or network—including for example to electronic appliances of individual consumers 95.
The
The AUDIT event 852(4), in this example, may be linked to an audit method 854. In order to access the data in this example, the Commerce Utility System 90 might need permission in the form of access tags and/or an appropriate PERC control set defining more detailed usage permissions, and semantic knowledge of the record format written out by the meter method 850's USE event 852(2). The semantic knowledge could come from an out-of-band agreement (e.g., a standard), or through access to the MDE (or relevant MDE portion) of the meter method 850 that describes the use record format.
The events of audit method 854 would include a USE event 856(2) that performs the functions expected by the calling method's event—in this case, gathering use records and a copy of the current UDE, and sending them off. In this example, let's assume there is an INITIALIZE event 856(1) in this method as well. When called, the INITIALIZE event 856(1) would be sent internally, and its associated load module(s) would call back to the READ MDE event 852(7) of the meter method 850 to learn the semantics of the use records. Then, the USE event 856(2) would be called and the load module(s) 858(2) associated with processing this event would call the appropriate events of the meter method 850 (e.g., READ USE RECORD repeatedly, and READ UDE once). At this point, the expectations of the calling method have been fulfilled, except for administrative object packaging and transmission.
In order to implement more distributed clearing functions, the USE event 856(2) may do more processing. For example, while reading in the USE records from the meter, the audit method 854 may implement analysis functions (e.g., categorizing the types of objects used, and reducing the information reported up the clearing chain to a simple count of how many times various types of content were accessed). Records from content types that are not interesting may be discarded. The detailed records themselves may be discarded after analysis. In another example, the UDE values (e.g., how many clicks are recorded) may be compared to the number of use records retrieved, and if there is a discrepancy, they can be reported and/or acted upon locally (e.g., disabling use of the objects from a given provider until further interaction). In still another example, records may have user identity information removed to ensure privacy. In a further example, some use records may be processed and analyzed locally (and then discarded), while other detail records are saved for later processing.
Once the distributed clearing functions have been performed, the information can be packaged up in one or more administrative objects for transmission up the clearing chain to a centralized location. This may involve a direct report to the provider(s), and/or a report to another clearing function, for example. The processed records may be released (for deletion, summary, filing, etc. by the meter method) by the audit method 854 when received, processed, transmitted, or on receipt of a confirmation by the recipients.
In another example using the meter method 850 shown in
Distributing support services in this manner provides additional capabilities that may not be present or available in a centralized architecture. For example, a rights and permissions clearinghouse could delegate a local server within an organization to keep track of requests and to cache copies of permissions previously requested by the organization. Such a local rights and permissions clearinghouse could reduce network traffic and provide a convenient local repository for organization-specific permissions (e.g., site licenses for computer software). The local rights and permissions server could be authorized by rights holders or a rights and permissioning agency or other rights distribution organization to grant licenses on a request basis.
As another example, many secure, largely automated administrative and support services may be distributed in whole and/or in part to an at least occasionally connected appliance—regardless of whether that appliance is a computer, set top box, personal digital assistant (PDA) digital telephone, intelligent digital television, or any other digital appliance. Such appliances can use a protected processing environment to ensure that the support service is performed securely and reliably, free from tampering and other interference (e.g., as described in the Ginter, et al. patent specification).
In another example, one possible VDE content distribution scenario involves content providers performing the initial packaging role, distributors performing the distribution function, users keeping track of usage records, and clearinghouses processing usage and financial information. This is in contrast to a centralized processing model, in which all of these functions are performed by a single centralized party.
As still another example, efficiency increases can be realized by distributing clearinghouse functions across individual user machines, local area network (LAN) servers, and/or corporate “gateway” machines that bridge the corporate LAN/WAN environment with the outside world, and commercial “backbone” servers.
As another example, a company's computer might be authorized by a central certificate authority to grant certain kinds of digital certificates. For example, the company might be a member of a certain trade organization. The trade organization's certifying authority might give the company a digital certificate attesting to that fact, and delegate to the company's own computer the certifying authority to issue certificates attesting to the fact that each of the company's employees is a member of the trade organization. Similarly, parents may be authorized to issue digital certificates on behalf of their offspring.
The techniques described above illustrate how the Distributed Commerce Utility, through use of the Commerce Utility System 90 architecture, can be distributed across multiple Commerce Utility Systems. Furthermore, the service functions 90-2 provided by one or more Commerce Utility Systems 90 may be decomposed into complete, or even partial, process steps (e.g., service application components 90-2) that are performed in whole or in part on other Commerce Utility Systems 90, or any other system (including end user systems) selected by the participants in a given scenario.
Financial Clearinghouse 200
The core functions of financial clearinghouse 200 relate to payment processing 208, payment aggregation 212, payment disaggregation 214, and micro-payment management 216—since these functions collect money from customers and other value chain participants, and pay money to value chain service or product providers such as merchants.
In more detail, financial clearinghouse 200 may perform the following functions in this example:
Financial clearinghouse 200 may receive payment information 202, customer information 230, provider information 232, and aggregated reports and bills 234 from the outside world. It may generate debit orders 236, credit orders 238, statements and reports 204, 240, release signals 242, and credit checks and authorizations 244.
Database management 222 and event driven reporting 218 may be used to securely provide accurate financial reports to value chain participants. Reconciliation function 220—which is related to both reporting and financial management—allows financial clearinghouse 200 to provide more reliable financial management. Replication function 224 and propagation function 226 are used by financial clearinghouse 200 to facilitate distributed processing with other financial clearinghouses 200 and/or other secure or insecure protected processing environments, permitting the financial clearinghouse to securely share state and update information with other Commerce Utility Systems or other participants.
In the example shown, the payment information 202 (which may arrive in one or more secure containers 152) is the primary input to payment processing block 208. If desired, payment information 202 can also include some or all of the usage information sent to a usage clearinghouse 300—or it may include different types of usage information more relevant to financial auditing and transaction tracking. This payment information 202 can arrive in real time or on a delayed (e.g., periodic or other event-driven) basis.
Financial clearinghouse 200 uses provider information 232 and customer information 230 to effect funds transfers between customers and providers. Financial clearinghouse 200 uses aggregated reports and bills 234 to guide the overall payment processing 208 as well as payment aggregation 212 and payment disaggregation 214. For example, financial clearinghouse 200 may issue debit and credit orders 236, 238 to third party financial parties such as banks, credit card companies, etc., to effect debiting of consumer accounts and corresponding crediting of provider accounts. Financial clearinghouse 200 may issue statements 204 and reports 240 for secure auditing and/or informational purposes. Financial clearinghouse 200 may issue credit authorizations 244 after performing credit checks 210, thereby extending credit to appropriate value chain participants. Such authentication 244 may include an input/output function, unless they are performed entirely locally (i.e., an authorization request comes in, and clearinghouse 200 is the source of credit and/or credit limit information).
Financial clearinghouse 200 may issue release signals 242 in appropriate circumstances to allow electronic appliances 100 to stop maintaining and/or keep “pending” financial information after it has been transferred, analyzed and/or processed by financial clearinghouse 200. In one example, the user appliance 100 may, within business model limitations, store the financial information even after it is “released,” reduce it to a summary, etc. Of course, it may have already done this with a copy of the data (e.g., if previously allowed to access it). For example, suppose the local copy of financial usage information contains confidential business model information. A property might cost $1.00 to view, and that dollar may be split among several parties. Normally, the user is only aware of the overall bottom line, not the details of the split—even though a record may exist locally for each of the participants in the transaction.
A connection for a real time transaction doesn't always require secure containers 152, but using containers 152 even in this scenario has advantages. For example, containers 152 permit attachment of rules and controls to the contents, allowing users to specify how the contents may be used. In addition, use of containers 152 leverages existing capabilities in the protected processing environment. Using a technique such as electronic mail to deliver containers 152 (e.g., as attachments to SMTP mail messages, or as attachments to any other e-mail protocol that supports attachments) permits asynchronous processing of contents, thereby allowing Commerce Utility Systems 90 to smooth out their peak processing loads. A cost of operating a commercial clearinghouse is the depreciation expense of the equipment. The amount of equipment is principally driven by the peak load requirement. One can expect a significant variance in load (for example, compare Friday night at 8 pm versus Tuesday morning at 3 am). Smoothing out this function can lead to quite considerable savings in equipment and related costs (electricity, personnel, maintenance, etc.)
Transaction processor 248 may process and analyze received information, and database manager 250 may store received information in a database for later analysis and/or for historical analysis (to increase credit limits, analyze payment histories, etc.) In addition, database manager 250 may also store information associated with existing credit limits, addresses for communications (physical and/or electronic), and other account information. For example, the Ginter et al. patent specification discusses budget encumbrances. The database manager 250 may be used to store information used to track encumbrances as well. There may also be sets of security information used to communicate with protected processing environments and/or users employing the protected processing environments, and the settlement services. Records associated with communications with the settlement services may also be stored there as well. The database 250 may also be outfitted with various reporting facilities related to its contents.
Transaction processor 248 and database manager 250 together perform most of the functions shown in
Example Financial Clearing Processes
Financial clearinghouse 200 analyzes the audit trail 228, and generates one or more summary reports 240. Financial clearinghouse 200 may provide the summary report 240 to provider 164 by transmitting it electronically within a secure container 152c. Financial clearinghouse 200 may also coordinate with a financial intermediary 258 and one or more financial processors 260 to effect a debiting of a bank or other account owned by consumer 95 and corresponding crediting of a bank or other account owned by provider 164.
For example, the financial clearinghouse 200 may receive the audit information, disaggregate the transactions (into value chain amounts for creators, distributors, and others; as well as for tax authorities and other governmental entities), and then calculate an amount due it from each of the transaction beneficiaries. Then, if desired or necessary (due to the size of the transactions, per transaction fees, or other efficiency and/or cost considerations), the transactions may be rolled up into lump sums for each of the parties, and submitted to a financial intermediary 258 (along with appropriate account information) that is responsible for performing credit card transactions. The financial intermediary 258 (who may also charge a fee or take a percentage) may then cause transactions to occur at the financial processor 260 such that the beneficiaries each receive the appropriate amounts. Alternatively, if the financial clearinghouse 200 has the ability and authorizations necessary to submit credit card transactions directly to credit card companies, it may cause the transactions to occur directly with the financial processor 260 (e.g., Visa).
Financial processor 260 may send a statement 204 to provider 164 (and/or to consumer 95) detailing the financial debits and payments that have occurred. It may provide statement 204 within a secure container (not shown) if desired. Financial clearinghouse 200 may receive a portion or percentage of the debited funds to compensate it for the financial clearing services it has provided.
The consumer's electronic appliance 100 upon receiving the electronic funds may deposit them within an electronic cash purse 262 it maintains within its protected processing environment 154 (e.g., as an “MDE” described in Ginter et al.) (see
Assuming that the rights owner requires payment in return for usage of the work 166, the consumer's electronic appliance 100 may automatically debit electronic purse 262 by the amount of payment required (in this case $5) (
Upon receiving the usage record 262 and successfully storing it within its own database 250, financial clearinghouse 200 may send a release signal 242 within an electronic container 152d (see
The consumer may use the same or different work 166 again to prompt generation of an additional usage record 264262 by another usage charge (in this case exhausting the purse's contents) (see
are transmitted within the same electronic container 152e in this example) (see
Financial clearinghouse 200 may respond by transmitting additional electronic funds (after debiting the consumer's bank or other account), and may also provide another release signal allowing the consumer's electronic appliance 100 to delete usage record 264 The money collected may be paid to the rights holders (after any appropriate reductions to compensate Commerce Utility Systems 90).
it to a consumer 95. In this example, the consumer 95 pays $20 for his copy of the book 166
164 and the publisher 168 based, for example, upon a contractual agreement. In this example, the publisher receives four of the consumer's $20 and the author receives the rest.
Disaggregation allows financial clearinghouse 200 to automatically split up a consumers' payment among any number of different value chain participants. This is extremely useful in ensuring that all contributors to a product or service can reliably and efficiently receive compensation for their respective contributions.
Financial clearinghouse 200 may distribute appropriate shares of the customer's payment to author 164 and publisher 168 in accordance with the agreement between the author and the publisher. What tells financial clearinghouse 200 who should receive the disaggregated parts of the payment? In this
Controls 188 may also specify and control how the customer's payment will be disaggregated among the other value chain participants. For example, author 164 may specify within controls 188b the author provides, that she is to receive $16 for each copy of work 166 purchased by an ultimate consumer 95. Because of the secure chain of handling and control provided in accordance with the virtual distribution environment (see the Ginter et al. patent disclosure), author 164 can be confident (to the degree required by the commercial priorities of the author and allowed by the strength of the overall system) that publisher 168, customer 95 and any other consumers or potential users of property 166 will be subject to this control 188b. The publisher 168 may add its own controls to the one specified by author 164, the publisher controls 188c providing a $4 mark up (for example) that it will receive for the use of its brand name, distributing and marketing services.
In this particular example, a metering method 275 is designed to pass an event to billing method 277 whenever the consumer first uses a particular piece of content (meter event 275 could also or alternatively pass the event along each time the consumer uses the content to provide a “pay per view” functionality if desired).
The billing methods 277 include two different billing methods 277a and 277b in this example. Methods 277a, 277b can be independently deliverable—for example, the author 164 could deliver billing sub-method 277a, and the publisher 168 could deliver billing sub-method 277b. Billing method 277a writes information to a billing trail data structure specifying how much the author 164 is to be paid ($16 in this example). Billing method 277b writes information to the same or different billing trail data structure specifying how much the publisher is to be paid ($4). Billing methods 277a, 277b may each receive the open event passed along by meter method 275, and may each write billing records to the same (or different) billing trail data structure.
In this example, a budget method 279 may be delivered independently of the billing methods 277a, 277b. Budget method 279 may write records to a budget trail data structure 281 specifying (among other things) the payment disaggregation arrangement (i.e., the $16/$4 split between author and publisher) specified by the billing methods 277a, 277b. The budget trail data structure 281 (which is maintained independently from the data structures maintained by billing methods 277a, 277b and therefore cannot be compromised by the author 164 and/or the publisher 168) might be sent to a financial clearinghouse 200. The financial clearinghouse 200 would perform payment and debit financial clearing as described above to result in the consumer's account being debited by $20, the author's account being credited by $16 and the publisher's account being credited by $4 (thus disaggregating the user's $20 payment between the author 164 and the publisher 168). Meanwhile, the billing trail data structure could be sent to a usage clearinghouse 300 specified by the author 164 and/or the publisher 168. Usage clearinghouse 300 could analyze the billing trail data structure and let author 164 and/or publisher 168 know what payments they might expect to receive from the financial clearinghouse 200.
Thus, in this example, electronic control sets 188 may specify or define, among other things: (i) rights available in a particular digital object, (ii) the cost of exercising such rights, and (iii) how payments for exercising rights will be divided (disaggregated) among rightsholders. This ability to define payment disaggregation in advance (before customers' payment methods and arrangements are activated) provides a high degree of efficiency and flexibility—since it can use the consumers' payment method, for example, to automatically direct parts of the consumers' payment to appropriate people who need to be compensated. Since the same electronic appliance 100 that is being used to exercise the rights is also being used to help direct payments to various different value chain participants, a portion of the overall financial clearing process is effectively distributed throughout a large number of parallel computing resources. Because of the high degree of trustedness that can be provided by the system disclosed in the Ginter et al. patent specification, for example, rightsholders can release such control sets 188 into the stream of commerce with an appropriate that their payment arrangements will be carried out. Financial clearinghouse 200 can help to ensure that such disaggregated payments efficiently and rapidly reach their required destinations.
A protected processing environment 154 at the site of customer 95 securely enforces the augmented controls 188c, requiring total payment and/or payment authorization from the customer 95 before allowing the customer to access work 166. Controls 188c may also specify which financial clearinghouse 200 is to be used to handle payment processing, and what payment methods are acceptable while still giving customer 95 flexibility in terms of choosing a desired payment method. The customer's protected processing environment 154c may then automatically send appropriate payment or payment authorization 190a to financial clearinghouse 200 for disaggregation in accordance with controls 188a—which may be the same controls (or a subset of those controls relating to payment disaggregation) specified by the author and/or the publisher.
Because the customer's protected processing environment 154c generates controls 188a subject to the controls 188c, 188b specified by the publisher and author (see
Financial clearinghouse 200 processes the payment or payment authorization 152a in accordance with controls 188a, distributing payment 152b to the publisher and payment 152c to the author in accordance with the payment dividing agreement reached between the author and the publisher. Thus, for example, financial clearinghouse 200 might send $4 of electronic money to the publisher and $16 of electronic money to the author; or it might credit the bank or other accounts of the author and publisher in these amounts. Because this entire process takes place in a secure, trusted virtual distribution environment, each of the value chain participants can trust that they will in fact receive the payment they require and the process can be carried on automatically and electronically in a very efficient way that flexibly accommodates a wide variety of different business models and ad hoc relationships.
For example, repackager 174 might publish a newsletter on contemporary politics, and select an essay written by author 164 for publication along with two other works written by authors 164a, 164b for publication in the next newsletter issue. Authors 164, 164a and 164b may grant repackager 174 the right to reformat and redistribute the work. Taking advantage of this reformatting right, repackager 174 may create the latest issue of the newsletter and distribute it in a secure electronic container for reading by customer 95. In this example, the secure electronic container 152a may contain at least four separately “delivered” sets of business requirements—one for each of the three works (as specified by each of author 164, author 164a and author 164b) and one for the overall newsletter (as specified by repackager 174). Alternatively, the various works and/or the controls applying to them can be sent and delivered in independent secure containers 152, and/or some or all of the works and/or controls may be located remotely.
To read the newsletter, customer 95 opens electronic container 152a. Suppose that the newsletter cost (as set by repackager 174) is $10 per issue. The customer's $10 payment or payment authorization is sent to financial clearinghouse 200, which resolves it to give each value chain participant compensation (for example, author 164 may get $1, publisher 168 may get $1, aggregator 170 may get $0.50, each additional author 164a, 164b may each get $1 and the repackager 174 may get the rest—all as directed by the applicable electronic controls. Thus, the repackager can be compensated for selecting appropriate articles on the topic and combining them in a single, easy to read publication, and may also bring its own brand name recognition as an indicator of overall quality, and may itself add unique content of its own creation.
Looking at
After reading the abstract or watching the first five minutes of the film without cost, suppose six of the downstream customers 95(3)-95(8) agree to pay for the content at an example cost of $3.25 each. Financial clearinghouse 200 may ensure that the author 164, publisher 168 and aggregator 170 each receive an appropriate share of the income (e.g., $7 to the author, $7 to the publisher and $8.75 to the aggregator).
Superdistribution makes possible any number of levels of redistribution. For example, suppose that of the six downstream customers 95(3)-95(8), three of them decide to pass the work along to each of six additional potential customers—so that eighteen additional people receive a copy. Since the redistributed works have associated control structures mandating the same payment arrangement, author 164, publisher 168 and aggregator 170 each receive additional payments from each of these new customers. The snowballing effect of redistribution can continue in this manner across any number of consumers for a long time, and can dramatically increase revenue with minimal additional cost to the value chain members.
Payment Aggregation or Bundling
Micro-fees and micropayments may become an important basis for content usage transactions. For example, a consumer might pay each time she views a particular work or uses a certain piece of computer software, or listens to a certain piece of music. Different payment arrangements can be flexibly provided so that the consumer might have the option of paying a larger initial fee for unlimited usage or smaller micropayments on a per use basis. In addition, micropayments may be the least burdensome and most practical way for Commerce Utility Systems 90 to be compensated for their services. The ability to efficiently handle micropayments is thus very important in terms of supporting and enabling small charges.
Traditional financial payment mechanisms, such as credit cards, checks and the like, are unsuited to manage micropayments. These systems typically have levels of transaction overhead that impose severe burdens on business models based on many purchases below $5 each. For example, if it costs $0.50 to handle a payment transaction, it becomes uneconomical to handle payments for less than some value, perhaps $2 each because the cost of handling the payment is such a large portion of the transaction value, or even exceeds the payment itself. Hence, traditional financial payment mechanisms favor larger purchases and disfavor micro-purchases.
In one variation on this concept, payment aggregation may preserve the amounts of each individual transaction to allow high degree of reporting granularity but may be used to trigger when reporting occurs (e.g., after X dollars have been charged, or Y number of transactions have occurred) so that many individual transactions can be bundled and transmitted/processed together. This type of aggregation is useful for reducing the number and frequency of individual messages traveling over electronic network 150. In such instances, the reporting electronic appliance 100 may report: (i) the sum of the aggregated individual transactions, or (ii) each of the individual transactions, or (iii) both, or (iv) a combination of the two.
Payment aggregators 266 (which may, if desired, operate at the consumer's site within the protected processing environment 154 provided by the consumer's electronic appliance 100) may aggregate payments to common entities, keeping a running total of the amount of money owed to publisher A, the amount of money owed to author A, and the amount of money owed to the Distributed Commerce Utility 75. This running total can be incremented each time the consumer triggers an additional payment event. The aggregated payment amounts can be periodically or otherwise reported to financial clearinghouse 200 or other Commerce Utility Systems 90 based on certain time intervals (for example, weekly, monthly, or daily), the occurrence of certain events (for example, the consumer has exceeded her credit authorization and needs a new one, certain electronic controls have expired, etc.), and/or a hybrid of any or all of these techniques.
In more detail, usage clearing services in accordance with the present inventions may provide, for example, any combination of the following detailed features and/or functions:
Communication between usage clearinghouse 300 and other electronic appliances 100 may be by way of secure electronic containers 152, if desired. As explained in more detail in connection with financial clearinghouse 200, usage clearinghouse 300 may receive the containers in real time and/or on an asynchronous receipt basis. In the usage clearinghouse 300, the real time requirement may involve advertising or ratings information that loses some or all of its value as a function of time (e.g., if certain ratings information isn't delivered by a particular time, it may no longer be relevant in a given market analysis; or if advertisers don't receive usage information promptly, they may not be able to respond to customer tastes as effectively). Another case may involve a required delivery of usage information (e.g., a user on vacation returns to find their required audit date and grace period has expired, and their use of certain properties is prohibited until the audit is performed). The asynchronous delivery case would still be preferable in some instances for the same reasons as above in connection with financial clearinghouse 200.
Data collection function 314 is used to gather usage records 302 in addition to other types of information, such as, rules and controls 188 (which may provide information concerning prices and permissions, for example), financial statements 240a, detailed financial reports 240b, and requests for usage information and/or analysis 336. Data collection function 314 may closely interact with database management function 316—resulting in various types of information being stored and maintained in a usage or other database. Replication and propagation functions 330, 332 may be used to synchronize the contents of database 316 with other databases (for example, maintained by other usage clearinghouses 300) and/or to provide a distributed database across a number of secure network protected processing environments or electronic appliances.
Data aggregation 324 and analysis 328 may be used to analyze the contents of data collected by data collection function 314 and/or stored within database 316, enabling usage clearinghouse 300 to perform auditing 320 and/or reporting 322. Privacy control 318 may be used in conjunction with reporting function 322 to expose only certain information and not others to third parties—thereby protecting the privacy and confidentiality concerns of consumers for whom usage information has been collected. Such pending control 316 can be expressed in rules associated with the containers in which the information arrived.
Reporting function 322 may generate a variety of usage auditing reports 304. In addition, usage clearinghouse 300 may be used to provide advertising and/or marketing support 326 (e.g., to help target advertising to demographically appropriate consumers and/or to provide market and advertising research). Thus, in one example, usage clearinghouse 300 may itself produce and/or distribute advertising 340 for viewing by certain targeted consumers or deliver such advertising on behalf of others. Usage clearinghouse 300 may also generate customized responses 342 in response to information requests 336, and can also generate release signals 344 authorizing electronic appliances 100 to delete and/or make “no longer pending” the usage information from local databases once associated audit records have been transferred to usage clearinghouse 300 and that transfer has been confirmed. Consumer 95 may have an interest in keeping rather than deleting this usage information after it has been “released” (e.g., as a matter of curiosity, to monitor others' behavior (employees, children, etc.))
Usage clearinghouse 300 may generate its own controls 188b to, for example, govern how usage information, market analysis information or other information can be used by others. For example, usage clearinghouse 300 might be prepare a proprietary report or analysis that it provides to third parties in return for compensation. Usage clearinghouse 300 may insist that the people that they provide the report to do not redistribute the report to anyone else. Usage clearinghouse 300 may enforce this requirement electronically by delivering the report within one or more electronic containers 152, and associating electronic controls 188b with the report. These electronic controls 188b could enforce the “no redistribute” prohibition along with other conditions grants and/or limitations (e.g., the report can't be modified, the report can be printed and viewed, the report may be excerpted, etc.).
As mentioned above, usage clearinghouse 300 may also receive financial statements 240a and/or detailed financial records 240b or other financial information—and may generate its own financial statements 240c and/or detailed financial records 240d. For example, the usage clearinghouse 300 might provide a service to content providers in which the usage clearinghouse 300 receives controls 188a from content providers similar to the controls delivered to consumers 95. Based on a comparison of these data, usage clearinghouse 300 might make estimates as to the amounts of money that the content providers should expect to receive from financial clearinghouses 200. Usage clearinghouse 300 might thus provide an independent audit function—serving as a double check on financial clearinghouses 200 and providing a fraud detection function (e.g., people submitting usage records that don't have associated payments or otherwise incorrect payment amounts may be detected by the usage clearinghouse 300). In addition, the control 188 might represent closed models that content providers are considering implementing, and usage clearinghouse 300 might then offer a service in which it runs a comparison against the usage data it actually collects to build a model of what the financial results might look like if the content provider actually instituted the proposed model.
Secure communications 346 provides communications with a variety of electronic appliances 100 over electronic network 150 via secure containers 152 in this example. Database and transaction processor 348 in this example performs most of the
Because container 152 can only be opened within a secure protected processing environment 154 that is part of the virtual distribution environment described in the above-referenced Ginter et al. patent disclosure, provider 164 can be confident that the required audit trails will be generated and reported as he or she instructs. As consumers 95 use the property 166, their electronic appliances 100 automatically gather and store the usage information in the form of audit trails 302. Then, upon the occurrence of a specified event (e.g., once a month, once a week, after a certain number of uses, etc.), the consumer electronic appliances 100 send audit trail information 302 within digital containers to usage clearinghouse 300.
Usage clearinghouse 300 collects the audit trail information 302, may store it in its database 316, and analyzes the audit trail information to generate a report 304 which it may send to provider 164 within a further electronic container 152.
Provider 164 automatically receives secure information auditing the amount his or her work has been used and how it has been used, with usage clearinghouse 300 relieving the provider from having to collect or analyze this detailed usage information. In addition, usage clearinghouse 300 may serve to protect the privacy of consumers 95 by revealing only summary details authorized by them (for example, how many consumers have used the work 166 but not their names or addresses). This confidentiality function would be more difficult or problematic if provider 164 attempted to analyzed detailed usage records himself or herself.
If desired, usage clearinghouse 300 and financial clearinghouse 200 may be operated by the same business (in this case, both usage and financial audit trail information could be sent within the same electronic container 152). The usage clearing functions performed by usage clearinghouse 300 may operate in parallel with the financial clearing functions performed by financial clearinghouse 200 to support both detailed usage reporting and efficient financial clearing.
The usage clearinghouses 300 may perform demographic analysis on the received usage data and, based on this demographic analysis, target particular ads for other commercial content 164 to particular information services 170. For example, information service 170A might distribute program material and commercial content 164 of interest to runners and others with physical fitness interests. Usage clearinghouse 300(1) might analyze the usage data provided by the consumers 95 who subscribe to and view this type of information. Usage clearinghouse 300(1) is thus in a unique position to place ads in other commercial and non-commercial content that might be of interest to the same interest group. Similarly, information service 170B might specialize in broadcasting information of interest to car enthusiasts. Usage clearinghouse 300(2) may gather usage data about the usage of this type of information—and is thus in a unique and well placed position to distribute and target advertisements, commercial and non-commercial content to this group of consumers.
As one example, the consumer's electronic appliance might be a personal computer, and rights holders 164 who distribute computer software may be interested in knowing what software programs consumer 95 is using in addition to the ones they themselves are distributing. Consumer 95, on the other hand, may not want to reveal this detailed information about all of the software programs that are present on his or her personal computer.
As another example, digital broadcast rights holders 164 may want to know about every broadcasted program that consumer 95 watches, whereas the consumer may not want anyone else to know the kinds of programs he or she is interested in.
Usage clearinghouse 300 can effectively accommodate these countervailing interests by offering consumer 95 a financial incentive for more full disclosure but giving the consumer a choice.
In this example, rights holder 164 distributes electronic content and associated controls to consumer 95. The controls may specify options for revealing usage information. The consumer may choose:
Some secretive consumers may want the outside world to know as little as possible about their usage habits and will be willing to pay full price to protect their privacy. Other consumers may not care what the outside world knows about their usage habits, and will want to take advantage of large discounts based upon more full disclosure. Any number of such option levels may be provided, allowing the consumer to, for example, select precisely what kinds of information are revealed and which ones are kept secret. Because usage data is being collected within a secure protected processing environment 154 that is part of the consumer's electronic appliance 100, the consumer can be confident that the usage data will be securely handled and that unauthorized disclosure will not occur without his or her consent.
Based, for example, on one or more control sets 188 provided to the consumers' protected processing environment 154 and/or the consumer's selection made possible through such control sets, the consumer's protected processing environment 154 could reveal no (or minimal) usage information, limited usage information or full usage information, to usage clearinghouse 300. Usage clearinghouse 300 can then freely analyze the limited and full usage information it collects, providing reports and analysis to rights holders 164 and to other third parties such as market researchers, brokers, advertisers, auditors, scientists and others.
In more detail, rights and permissions support services in accordance with these inventions that may include, for example, some or all of the following functions and features:
In this example, rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 may provide some or all of the following functions:
The rights and permissions clearinghouse 400's primary task of object registration is performed by database management 412. In this connection, rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 may receive control sets 188 and corresponding object identifications 422 within the same or different electronic containers 152, and then “register” this information in a database 412 for later reference. Rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 may assist rights holders in defining control sets 188 specifying rights and permissions relating to the rights holder's electronic properties by providing a template function 414. Registration process 419 and database 412 may register control sets 188 in addition to objects or properties 166.
Rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 database function 412 and distribution function 410 may be used to distribute permissions on demand in response to requests 402, and may also be responsible for the task of distributing (via distribution function 410) all permissions relating to a particular property. Since permissions and/or prices may expire or change, rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 can also be responsible for updating control sets 188 specifying previously issued permissions and/or prices and distributing those updated control sets.
Rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 may also provide a reporting function 417, issuing reports 406 pertaining to the permissions and/or prices it has issued or distributed, for example. In this example, the operation of rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 provides audit opportunities, i.e., a channel through which to attach usage information. Such audit operations (which may, for example, be provided by integrating rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 functions with usage clearinghouse 300 functions) could be used to create integrated reports about which permissions were provided and which permissions were exercised—very valuable information for market research and business consequences as well as providing additional accountability to rightsholders.
This rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 audit function can be especially beneficial to preserve confidentiality. For example, a private rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 may be extended to provide payment aggregation in order to hide confidential individual transaction level information from the financial clearinghouse 200. In another example, a rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 can issue reports 426 indicating, for example, the number of registered objects in database 412 at the beginning of a reporting period, the number of new objects registered, and some aggregate statistics concerning perhaps the numbers of kinds of permissions associated with these objects and/or average or median prices for certain kinds of objects.
Rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 can also respond to queries 402 with responses 428. A request, for example, may consist of a request for permissions—which may be automatically granted; or the request may need to be qualified by the rights and permission clearinghouse 400 to determine whether the requester is qualified to receive the permissions. Qualifications might be established by presentation of one or more valid certificates, which might be simply checked, or stored in the database 412 for transmission to providers along with other information about permissions granted by the clearinghouse. In the preferred embodiment, other qualifications might be based on a shared secret (e.g., one or more tags from a control set 188 held by the requester) known by the requester's PPE 54 and the rights and permissions clearinghouse 400. This shared secret might be used in combination with a certificate, or in cases when qualification requirements are lower or have already been established (e.g., to have received the shared secret in the first place), the shared secret alone might be adequate to receive, for example, a permission that replaces or updates an expired permission.
Rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 also includes a permission negotiation engine 416 that may be used to negotiate permissions 188 that haven't been pre-approved by the rights holder. For example, suppose that a consumer 95 wants to exercise a right that is not within database 412. The consumer 95 could request the right. In response, rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 could determine whether the rights holder has authorized it to negotiate for the right on behalf of the rights holder. If the rights holder has not given the rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 the power to negotiate, the clearinghouse could contact the rights holder and request authorization and/or the permission itself. If the rights holder has granted the rights and permission clearinghouse 400 negotiating authority, the clearinghouse could enter into an electronic negotiation (see Ginter et al.
Database and transaction processor 432 performs most of the functions shown in
Publisher 168 may register control set 188ABC (and, if desired, also control set 188AB and control set 188A) with rights and permissions clearinghouse 400. The publisher 168 may also include additional “controls over controls,” or “permissions for permissions” “D” (e.g., distribution controls described in connection with FIGS. 79-85 of the Ginter et al. patent disclosure) along with controls 188ABC. These additional “D” controls may specify the circumstances under which rights A, B and/or C may be granted (qualification of credentials, frequency of reissue, number of controls for a given user, etc.).
Consumer 95 (or any other provider, such as an aggregator, repackager, author, or another publisher) may request a copy of any of these various control sets registered with rights and permissions clearinghouse 400. For example, if the consumer 95 is a journalist who uses the work 166 in accordance with control set 188AB and decides she wants to excerpt the work for certain purposes, she may request the control super set 188ABC that publisher 168 previously registered with rights and permissions clearinghouse 400. As another example, a consumer 95 in Germany may have received the control set 188 intended for U.S. distribution, and may need to request a different control set accommodating the European legal and monetary environment. Additionally, a rightsholder may modify previously distributed controls at a later date to add new rights, provide a “sale,” take away rights, etc.—with rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 being responsible for distributing these new control sets either on demand.
In a different example, publisher 168 might distribute work 166 with a very limited control set 188X allowing the consumer 95 to view only the abstract and specifying rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 as a contact point for obtaining permission to view or otherwise use the content as a whole. Consumer 95 could then contact rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 to obtain a more expansive control set 188Y allowing additional levels of usage. This provides a high degree of accountability and expanding auditing capabilities, since it requires consumers 95 to contact rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 in order to actually use a previously distributed property. Similarly, rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 may provide updated control sets 188Y to replace expired ones. This mechanism could be used, for example, to provide a variable discount on a particular item over time (for example, to allow a movie distributor to discount its first run film six months after its initial release date without having to decide at time of initial release how much the discount will be).
Rights Templates
For example, templates 450 may make some assumptions about the character of the content or other information being controlled, how it is partitioned or otherwise organized and/or the attributes those organizational entities have. Templates 450 simplify the process of defining permissions, and reduce or eliminate the need for specialized knowledge and substantial investments of time to exploit the underlying capabilities of the virtual distribution environment. It may be possible in this example for a user to avoid using templates 450 altogether and instead define permissions 188 in terms of a rights management language (for example, a natural or computer-based language)—but a large percentage of users will prefer the easy-to-use graphics interface that templates 450 may provide—and won't mind giving up the additional flexibility and associated complexities when undertaking the day-to-day business of defining permissions for a large number of different pieces of content.
Example rights template 450 shown in
Rights holders may “fill in” or select between these various options to define a “rights profile” corresponding to their particular property. In this example, rights template 450 may further models and/or levels for rights to be exercised conditional on payment. Such pricing models and levels may flexibly define a variety of different sorts of business pricing, such as, for example, one time charges, pay per view, declining cost, etc. See
Rights template 450 in this example can be self executing and/or can be “translated” or compiled automatically into one or more control sets 188 providing the necessary controls for implementing the rights holder's selections.
In this example, rights template 450 can be extensible. For example, as new technology enables and/or creates new operations, rights template 450 can be extended to accommodate the new operations while still being “upward compatible” with preexisting rights templates. Different rights templates 450 can be used for different types of properties, different value chain participants, etc.—and at the same time, certain rights templates might apply to multiple objects or properties, multiple value chain participants, etc. Some rights templates 450 can be supersets of other rights templates. For example, an overall rights permissions template 450 could define all of the possible rights that might apply to a particular property or class of properties, and sub-templates could be further defined to define rights associated with different consumers, classes of consumers, or rights holders. Thus, for example, an author might use a sub-template that is different from the one used by a distributor. Templates can also be recursive, i.e., they can be used to refer to other templates (and similarly, the control sets they define can refer to other control sets).
Rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 might partially fill in rights template 450—or an automatic process could be used (based, for example, on rights holder's pre-existing instructions) for completing and/or duplicating rights templates. Rights holders could use a graphical user interface to complete rights template 450 (e.g., by displaying a list of options on a computer screen and pointing and clicking with a mouse pointing device to fill in the options desired). In another example, a rights holder could define his or her preferences using a rights management language that a computer could automatically compile or otherwise process to fill in rights template 450 and/or construct associated control set(s) 188.
As described above, providers may control distribution of such pre-authorized permissions by rights and permission clearinghouse 400 by the mechanism of providing additional, “distribution controls” directing and/or controlling the distribution process.
In more detail, a certifying authority in accordance with these inventions may provide any combination of the following advantageous features and functions, for example in the form of certificates:
In this example, digital certificates 504 issued by certifying authority 500 are used as a conveyor of the context of rights usage and transaction authorizations. As described in the Ginter et al. patent disclosure, certificates 504 are particularly powerful in the virtual distribution environment because they provide contexts for rights usage. For example, class-based certificate use and automated, distributed governance of commerce rights may fundamentally enhance the efficiency of trusted networks. Suppose, for example, that a content publisher wants to charge commercial prices for a scientific journal subscription to all those but in higher education and is willing to give college and university students and professors a 20% discount. Digital certificates 504 issued by a trusted certifying authority 500 can be used to automatically provide assurances—within the context of distributed electronic network—that only people who are truly entitled to the discount will be able to exercise it (in this example, that only those certified as affiliated with an institution of higher education).
In the
Certifying authority 500 may gather evidence 502 as a basis for which to issue digital certificates 504. In this example, evidence 502 may include other digital certificates 504′ (e.g., so that one certificate can build on another). The fact collection and checking function 522 may accept this evidence 502 as well as additional trustedness data 540 (e.g., information concerning compromised or previously misused certificates) Certificate generation function 524 may generate new digital certificates 504 based upon this fact collection and checking process 522. Distribution function 528 may then distribute the new digital certificates 504, and issue bills 542 to compensate a certifying authority for undertaking the effort and liability that may be associated with issuing the certificate.
Certifying authority 500 may also maintain a revocation list 542 based on trustedness data 540 indicating, for example, certificates that have been compromised or that previously certified facts are no longer true (for example, Mr. Smith used to be a Stanford University professor but has since left the University's employ). The maintained revocation list function 526 is important for providing a mechanism to ensure that “bad” certificates cannot continue to be used once they are known to be bad. Certificates 504 issued by certifying authority 500 can expire, and the certifying authority can (for example, for a fee) renew a previously issued certificate by performing certificate renewal function 532. The certifying authority 500 may maintain a record or database of the certificates it has issued, and this database can be distributed—which can benefit from replication function 536 and propagation function 538 to accurately and efficiently distribute the database across a number of different locations.
Certifying authority 500 may communicate with consumer 95 using secure containers 152. It may generate and provide a control set 188b with certificate 504. This control set 188b may control some aspect of usage of the certificate 504 (e.g., it may not be redistributed and/or modified) and/or to define a chain of handling and control for the issuance of further dependent certificates (e.g., parents give authority to issue certificates about their offspring).
One certificate authority 500 may be “proxied” to issue certificates on behalf of another—such as for example in a chain of handling and control defined by one or more electronic control sets 188. Distributing the certifying authority 500 across a number of different electronic appliances has certain advantages in terms of efficiency for example.
In order to take advantage of certificate 504A, a student, faculty member and/or staff member of institution 1060 may need to provide a further certificate attesting to the fact that he or she is affiliated with institution 1060. Instead of having certifying authority 500 issue a further certificate 504 to each student, faculty member and staff member of institution 1060, it may be efficient and/or desirable for each institution 1060 holding a certificate 504A to issue dependent certificates 504(2) to its own faculty, staff and students. For example, institution 1060 may maintain a current list of all students, faculty and employees. Rather than requesting certifying authority 500 to issue a separate certificate 504(1) to each student, faculty member and employee of institution 1060, the institution may undertake this responsibility itself.
For example, institution 1060 may elect to operate its own, distributed certifying authority 500A. In one example, certifying authority 500 may issue electronic controls 188b (subject to controls 188a issued by rights holder 164, for example) that delegate, to the institution's certifying authority 500A, the authority and responsibility to issue dependent certificates 504(2) within certain limits (e.g., attesting to a limited universe of facts such as for example “This person is officially associated with the institution 1060”). Such dependent certificates 504(2) could, for example, be copies of certificate 504(1) with an addendum stating that a particular person is associated with the institution 1060 and stating a particular expiration date (e.g., the end of the current academic term). The institution's certifying authority 500A may then issue such dependent certificates 504(2) to each faculty member, student and staff member on its current roster.
Recipients of certificates 504(2) may need a still further certificate 504(1) attesting to their identity. This is because certifying authority 500A issues certificates 504(2) attesting to the fact that a certain named person is affiliated with institution 1060—not to the fact that a particular recipient of such a certificate is that person. The recipient may need to obtain this further “identity” certificate 504(1) from a governmentally operated certifying authority 500 such as a state or federal government.
Rightsholder 164 (and/or a rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 not shown) may issue control sets 188c for digital properties 166 that grant discounts or that provide other benefits to those who can provide a combination of valid digital certificates 504 attesting to their membership in the class “accredited higher education institution.” Each student, faculty member and staff member of the institution 1060 who has received a certificate 504(2) may take advantage of these discounts or other benefits.
In this
Each of these various certificates 504 can be issued by different certifying authorities 500. For example, one certifying authority 500 (e.g., operated by a governmental entity) might issue a certificate 504(1) certifying the consumer's identity, while another certifying authority may issue certificate 504(2) attesting as to student status, and a third certifying authority may issue the certificate attesting to the fact that Stanford is an accredited University (see
As an additional example, a control set element 188(1) shown in
Digital certificate 504(1) is encrypted in this example by the certifying authority 500 using the certifying authority's private key of a public key-private key cryptosystem pair, such as RSA or El Gamal. The certifying authority 500's corresponding public key can be made public (e.g., by publishing it in several publicly accessible sites on the World Wide Web or in another widely distributed context), or it could remain secret and never be exposed outside of protected processing environments 154. In either case, successful decryption of the digital certificate 504(1) to reveal the original clear text information provides a high degree of assurance that the digital certificate was issued by certifying authority 500 (presuming that the certifying authority's private key has not been compromised).
Expiration field 560(3) is useful because people who skip checks of revocation lists have at least some assurance that a certificate is good if it must be renewed periodically. Expiration date field 560(3) provides an additional safeguard by insuring that certificates do not last forever—allowing certifying authorities 500 to use different cryptographic key pairs for example to provide overall integrity and trustedness of the certification process. Changing the certifying authority 500's key pair reduces the incentives for an adversary to break a given key, because the amount of information protected by that key is limited, and the fraudulent use of a compromised key will only have a limited time of effectiveness. Furthermore, (currently) unexpected advances in mathematics may render some cryptographic algorithms useless, since they rely on (currently) theoretically intractable computations. A built in mechanism for changing the certifying authority 500's keys allows the impact of such breakdowns to be limited in duration if new algorithms are used for reissued certificates (alternatively, this risk can also be addressed by using multiple asymmetric key pairs generated in accordance with different algorithms to sign and validate keys, at the cost of additional decryption time).
By comparing the identity information in the
Another example would be a corporation that has proven its identity to the Secretary of State in the jurisdiction in which it is organized. If this corporation has passed muster to handle hazardous material it could submit its certificate of identity 504(1) from the Secretary of State (which in this case would comprise certifying authority 500A) to the agency (certifying authority 500B responsible for maintaining the database 554a of which companies are currently qualified and authorized to handle hazardous materials. The certifying authority 500B could then issue a certificate 504(2) attesting to this fact in an entirely automated way if desired.
Insert before heading on p 219 Secure Directory Services (
Sometimes, one or more participants in a particular value chain, or having a particular relationship with other participants, need to be authorized to act on behalf of the collection of participants. For example, several parties may wish to act based on authorization from the partnership or joint venture of which they are a member—or all participants within a particular value chain may need to act for the value chain as a whole. Each of the participants receiving such authority from the entity may need authorization from the entity to act.
The present invention provides a mechanism in which digital certificates 504 may be used to create a “virtual entity” that can grant any combination of participants any combination of the same or different powers to exercise defined powers under controlled conditions of use. More particularly, a digital certificate grants each participant in a virtual entity the power to act on behalf of the entity—within the constraints of the conditions of use and further with any consequences defined in the conditions of use specified by electronic controls associated with the container.
a value 564 that identifies the “virtual entity,”
signatures 566(1)-566(N)—one for each member of the entity,
other information 568 pertaining to the entity,
digital certificates 504(1)-504(N)—one for each member of the entity, and
control information 188 that specifies powers (e.g., rights or permissions) and “conditions of use.”
Value 564 provides an identifier that uniquely identifies the entity. The “other information” field 568 may provide further information concerning the entity (e.g., the name of the entity, the name and address of each participant, the expiration date on which the entity ceases to exist, and other information). Signatures 566(1)-566(N) are like signatures on a partnership agreement—each member of the virtual entity affixes his or her “signature” to indicate assent to be a member of the entity and assent to the conditions being granted to each participant.
Container 152 in this example further includes an electronic control set 188 describing conditions under which the power may be exercised. Controls 188 define the power(s) granted to each of the participants—including (in this example) conditions or limitations for exercising these powers. Controls 188 may provide the same powers and/or conditions of use for each participant, or they may provide different powers and/or conditions of use for each participant.
The participant initiating issuance of digital container 152 (actually, the participant's protected processing environment 154) may select a random value for use as entity identifier value 564 (
The participant's PPE 154 may then make electronic container 152, and place into it the control information 188, the virtual entity certificate information 564, 566, 568, and the participant's own certificate 504 specifying a cryptographic key the participant may use to exercise rights (
Steps 580-592 may be repeated until container 152 has been signed by each participant within the virtual entity (“no” exit to decision block 580). The completed container 152 may then be transmitted to all participants (
If the requested action is not permitted by controls 188 (
The processes and techniques shown in
Another example is a manufacturing process comprising multiple participants. The conditions of use provided by controls 188 may allow any of the value chain participants in the manufacturing process value chain to perform certain actions on behalf of the value chain as a whole. For example, a materials manufacturer, a finished goods supplier and the shipping company that transports materials between them may for a virtual entity. This virtual entity may then submit a control set to a transaction authority that describes a process that describes all three participants acting in concert. For example, the control set created in accordance with the conditions of use applicable to their virtual entity might permit a unified presentation of materials requirements, finished appearance and delivery schedule, as one simple example.
In another example, a semiconductor company, a systems integrator, and three different suppliers of software may form a virtual entity supporting the semiconductor company's chip design, simulation, and design testing applications. In this example, certificates may be issued to each company comprising this example entity and to particular individuals within each of the companies. Rules and controls negotiated among the companies may specify who has access to which parts of the software applications and associated databases and who may make modifications to the software and/or data. In this way, the semiconductor company can authorize access to outside contractors and/or suppliers and to specific individuals representing those outside companies. These individuals may be authorized just enough access to solve typical problems and perform system maintenance tasks. Also, they may be granted additional rights (authorizations) for a limited period of time in order to resolve specific problems requiring for resolution access to certain executables and/or data not included in their default permissions.
The virtual entity feature of the present invention represents, in part, an extension that builds upon the chain of handling and control techniques disclosed in Ginter et al. For example, certificates produced in accordance with this aspect of the present invention can use capabilities of a VDE chain of handling and control to manage a chain of certificates.
In more detail, secure directory services provided in accordance with these inventions may provide the following example advantageous features and functions:
C Database management 606,
C Database search/retrieval 608,
C Database replication 610,
C Database propagation 612,
Database 606 may be accessed by search and retrieval engine 608 which takes consumer-provided input information as a source and uses it to retrieve records that are relevant. For example, secure directory services 600 may receive identities 618 of individuals, organizations, services and/or devices; electronic addresses 620; certificate 622; and/or keys 624. This information may be stored in database 606.
In response to requests 602, secure directory services search and retrieval engine 608 may access database 606 to retrieve additional information (for example, the electronic mail address of a certain individual or organization, the public key of a certain individual, the identity of a person having a certain electronic mail address, the identity and address of a person having a certain public key, etc.).
Additionally, secure directory services 600 may return access controls, audit requirements and the like. For example, a user may be required to present valid credentials (e.g., a certificate 504) to access the internal email addresses of a corporation. Certain fields of information known to the database 606 may not be available to all comers (e.g., the office location or a particular employee, their home directory(ies) on the company's servers, etc.; or a consumer's physical address may be available to people that present a certificate 504 issued by the consumer acting as his own certificate authority 500, but no one else. These controls can be specified in secure containers that carry the information to the secure directory service 600.
When the information is provided to requesters, they may be required to use the information only in authorized ways. For example, they may be allowed to use the information to formulate email messages, but not excerpt a physical address for a mailing list. These restrictions can be enforced by controls 188b the secure directory services 600 associates with the information it provides.
As shown in
The transaction authority may simply be a secure, watchful bystander to, and certifier of, the electronic transaction and/or transaction step (in a sequence of overall transaction steps), it may be a secure facilitator of a secure plural-party electronic transaction, and/or it may actively and directly participate in the electronic transaction.
In more detail, a transaction authority in accordance with these inventions may provide the following advantageous features and/or functions:
In this specific example, transaction authority 700 performs the following functions:
In this example, transaction authority 700 receives notifications that events have occurred in the form of event notifications 748 which may be carried in one or more secure electronic containers 152. Event notification collection process 730 collects these event notifications 748 and may store them in a validated event database 732. Transaction authority 700 may generate additional notifications 748validated event database 732, and may also issue responses 750 indicating the current status of a transaction or process in response to requests 752 and/or based on other requirements. In addition, transaction authority 700 may generate and output audit records 754 indicating the progress and status of transactions or processes based upon the contents of its validated events database 732 as analyzed by auditing function 736. Transaction authority 700 may also issue reports 756 based on its reporting function 738. Validated event database 732 may be a distributed event notification database, in which case replication process 742 and propagation process 744 are used to maintain and update the database in a distributed manner.
Another major function of transaction authority 700 in this example is to issue new or modified event requirements 758 that can be used to control or influence an overall process or transaction. Transaction authority 700 may receive control set 188, prices and permissions 188requirements 762. Both event flow requirements 760 and process routing requirements 762 can be specified in one or more control sets. In response to this information and the validated event database 732 contents, transaction authority 700 may use its requirement generation process 734 to create new or modified event requirements 758. Transaction authority 700 may also create new or modified control sets 188″ and new or modified prices and/or permissions 188′″. Transaction authority 700 may use financial statements 764 as an input to its secure auditing function 736.
Secure communications facility 770 permits transaction authority 700 to communicate in a secure manner over electronic network 150 (for example, via secure electronic containers 152). Database and transaction processor 772 performs most of the processes shown in
Process control logic 774 may include an inference engine or expert system for use in handling error conditions not fully anticipated or specified by the event flow requirements 760 and/or process routing requirements 762. Process control logic 774 might operate based on rule based principles, fuzzy logic, neural networks, or a combination of some or all of these—or any other method of process control logic. Process control logic 774 determines the next event that is to occur within the overall transaction or process.
Document notarizer 780 may be used to provide authenticated document generation, for example, to affix digital seals and/or stenographic information to written and/or digital documents.
Transaction authority 700 can, for example, use the interaction models shown in
For example, transaction authority 700 can generate control sets specifying event flow and/or process routing requirements 758 and/or control sets 188 that mean different things in different contexts. As an example, a control set that transaction authority 700 issues might cause one corporation to perform one step and another corporation to perform another step—with each corporation never learning the particular step or sequence of steps being performed by the other corporation. Thus, transaction authority 700 can develop control sets 188 that can be used to provide only partial disclosure between different individual or corporate actors.
In this example, each value chain participant 164(1), . . . 164(N) in a process administered by transaction authority 700 could contribute a control set 188(1), . . . 188(N) specifying or governing the participant's own business requirements, limitations and processes for the transaction (
Transaction authority 700 also receives another control set 188X specifying how to link the various participants' control sets together into overall transaction processes with requirements and limitations (
Upon receipt of an incoming event requiring processing (
Transaction authority 700 may then begin monitoring events received using the activated control superset (
If the incoming event is an error condition (“Y” exit to
If the error is critical (
The process shown in
A Commerce Utility System 90 can include service functions that enable it to perform as a “Security Checkpoint System 6000” (see
Thus, Security Checkpoint System 6000 may perform security and/or administrative functions. This Commerce Utility System capability takes the positive benefits of centralized security models (e.g., ability to have a central authority physically control the processing node) and deploys these capabilities into a distributed “user space” model that can achieve maximum efficiency and flexibility, support secure and manageable scalability (a principal weakness of centralized systems), and provide the enhanced security benefits of multiple, independent, secure environment layers. The latter capability is particularly adapted for highly sensitive communications desiring extra security assurance. These security layers are enabled by the required participation and security processing of one or more independent security checkpoint protected processing environments that reinforces the foundation distributed security environment.
Information that passes through one or more Security Checkpoint Systems 6000 can be certified and/or authenticated to assure an information recipient (e.g., a party receiving information in a container) that certain communications functions and/or security steps (processes) occurred prior to receiving the information. This certification and/or authentication can include, for example, certifying or authenticating proper communication routing through required and/or authorized protected processing Security Checkpoint Systems 6000. Such checkpoints may be, for example, distributed throughout a telecommunications network, and “local” to the physical and/or logical location of end-user VDE nodes (see
Security Checkpoint Systems 6000 may employ telecommunication switches adapted to certify and/or authenticate certain information and processes. For example, certificates issued by a Security Checkpoint System 6000 may certify that a required route was followed and that a required checkpoint examined a communicated secure electronic container, and/or that the sending of such a container or other electronic information was performed pursuant to certain stipulated rules and controls. For example, such a service can help ensure and/or certify and/or authenticate, that certain budgets, other limits, and/or restrictions are not exceeded, and/or certain other requirements are met.
For example, a Security Checkpoint System 6000 may help ensure requirements (including that limits or other restrictions are not exceeded) for: the number of “shipped” information containers in a given period of time; the value of electronic currency contained within (or represented by) a given container and/or by containers over a certain period of time (very important to reduce improper electronic currency activities); the financial amount committed in a purchase order, including that proper ordering authority is present; and so on. Such requirement assessment may be in reference to, for example, container (or other digital information communication) activity communicated from a certain logical and/or physical area, node, node group, user or user organization, and/or other user grouping, wherein said reference is determined through referencing secure node and/or individual user and/or organization and/or area identification information as, for example, a VDE secure container travels through said adapted one or more telecommunication switches.
These Commerce Utility System “communications checkpoint” capabilities can provide useful security features by, for example, providing one or more “independent” distributed security “check points” along a telecommunication route that substantially increases security reliability by requiring the presence of a proper certificate and/or authentication securely provided by such checkpoint and securely associated with and/or inserted within said container by a process managed by said checkpoint (or a group of checkpoints). This presence can be tested by a receiving node—and a proper certificate or authentication can be required to be present, for example according to rules and controls, before such receiving node will process at least a portion of the content of one or more classes of received containers. Such container classes may include, for example, containers from specific individuals and/or groups and/or containers and/or container contents that have certain one or more specific attributes.
Security Checkpoint Systems 6000 may be “independent” of end-user Virtual Distribution Environment nodes from a security perspective. Such nodes may, for example, be independent from a security perspective because they use key management to maintain multiple secure execution compartments within their protected processing environments for checkpoint management, such that a security breach in end-user nodes shall not directly comprise the security of checkpoint operation, and to help ensure that a breach related to a secure execution compartment will not comprise other such compartments.
Security Checkpoint Systems 6000 may also gather audit information including, for example, retrieving identity information of intended container recipient(s), class(es) of container information, checksum and/or other information employed for future validation (e.g., non-repudiation), and/or archiving of some or all portions of said container's content. Some of this information may be at least in part in encrypted such that one or more portions of such information may not be decrypted without the cooperation of one or more of the container sender, the intended and/or actual container recipient(s), and/or a government body having authority to access such information.
Security checkpoint systems 6000 in this example have the secure ability to control whether or not a secure container 152 transmitted through the communications infrastructure will be permitted to pass—and the consequences of routing the container through the communications infrastructure. In one example, controls operating with a user 95(1)'s protected processing environment may require certain kinds of containers 152 (e.g., containers that carry electronic currency) to include controls 404 that require them to be routed through a security checkpoint systems 6000 (or a certain class of security checkpoint systems). Such controls 404 can prevent the container 152 or its content (e.g., currency it contains) from being used unless it is routed through the appropriate security checkpoint system 6000.
For example, suppose that user 95(1) wishes to send a secure container 152 to user 95(2). In this example, the user 95(1) transmits the container 152 to user 95(2) through the telecommunications infrastructure. That infrastructure may detect that the information being sent is a container, and may route the container for interception by the a security checkpoint system (system 6000(5), for example).
Security checkpoint system 6000(5) may, after intercepting the container 152, examine the control information within the container to determine whether requirements for further communicating the container to user 95(2) have been satisfied. Security checkpoint system 6000(5) may forward the container to user 95(2) only if those requirements have been met—or it may modify the container to permit user 95(2) to open and use the container subject to the container's controls 404 (which may limit use, for example). The security checkpoint system 6000 may be authorized to modify at least a portion of the container's controls 404—for example to add further use limitations.
This
(1) a security checkpoint system, and
(2) a member of the particular class.
Hence, in this example “web 1” represents the class of certified security checkpoint systems 6000(1)-6000(5), 6000(7); and Web 2 represents the class of security checkpoint systems 6000(4)-6000(6). As one example, “web 1” security checkpoint systems 6000 may be certified as being capable of handling containers containing electronic currency 6004.
One of the requirements specified within the control information associated with the container 152 may be that it must pass through a “web 2” security checkpoint system (e.g., system 6000(5))—for example, to enable certain secure auditing functions such as trusted electronic currency tracking. A “web 1” security checkpoint system (e.g., system 6000(3)) may refuse to pass the container 152 to user 95(2) based on these controls 404—or it may refuse to modify the container 152 to make it usable by user 95(2).
By way of further example, suppose user 95(2) wishes to pass the container 152 along to another user 95(3). The controls 404 associated with the container 152 may require, in this particular example, that further communication of the container 152 must be through a “web 1” security checkpoint system 6000(7). This routing requirement may be been present in the controls 404 provided by user 95(1), or it may be added by security checkpoint system 6000(5) or the user 95(2)'s protected processing environment.
In the particular example shown, the controls 404 may enable the “web 1” security checkpoint system 6000(7) to pass the container 152 along to user 95(3) via a further routing that does not include a security checkpoint system 6000 (e.g., via another type of commerce utility system and/or a non-secure telecommunications switch).
Each set of consequences may involve some form of secure auditing, for example. If the security checkpoint 6000 passes a container 152 containing electronic currency for example, the security checkpoint 6000 may record one or more of the following auditing information:
If the security checkpoint system 6000 refuses to pass and/or modify a container 152, it may produce an audit report including available tracking information, for example:
It may also notify the sender, the intended receiver, a government agency, or other authority. It may further charge a “failed communication” overhead fee to the sender, for example.
The security checkpoint system 6000 may then determine whether additional communications are required (
The publisher may use his own branding, name recognition and marketing efforts to distribute the work to a consumer 95. The publisher 168 may also provide the work 166 to a content “aggregator” 170—someone who provides customers access to a wide range of content from multiple sources. Examples of aggregators include, for example, traditional on-line information database services and World Wide Web sites that host content from many diverse sources. Typically, consumers use an aggregator's services by searching for information relevant to one or more consumer-defined topics. An aggregator 170 may provide the search tools to the consumer 95 who will make their own selections.
The aggregator 170 might distribute the work 172 containing some or all of the original work 166 directly to consumer 95. Aggregator 170 may also distribute the work 172 to a “repackager” 174. Repackager 174 may, for example, take content from several sources on related matters and combine them into mixed source products, such as multimedia combinations, newsletter publications, or “current awareness” packages. In these services, the repackager makes the selection of content and organizes based on audience-indicated interest. A consumer 95 may subscribe to an electronic newsletter on a particular topic or the consumer may give the repackager 174 a short list of topics they are interested in. The repackager 174 will select relevant information and communicate the information to the customer. Here the repackager is doing the selecting for the consumer.
For example, repackager 174 might be the publisher of a newsletter and might republish some or all of the author's work 166 in this newsletter 176. Repackager 174 could directly distribute newsletter 176 to consumer 95, or the newsletter could pass through still additional channels. Repackager 174 could use a search engine provided by aggregator 170 to find articles of interest to consumer 95 and combine those articles into an electronic newsletter that has both the aggregator 170's brand and the repackagers 174's brand, and then send the newsletter to the consumer 95.
Distributed Commerce Utility 75 may support the
1. Certifying authority 500 can issue certificates that allow each of the value chain participants to identify who they are and to demonstrate that they are members of one or more particular classes. For example, author 164 and/or publisher 168 might specify that any certified aggregator or repackager is entitled to excerpt or anthologize work 166 so long as appropriate payment is made. Certifying authority 500 could issue digital certificates 504 supporting this desired business objective, the certificates certifying that aggregator 170 is in fact a reputable aggregator and that repackager 174 in fact a reputable repackager. So long as author 164 and/or publisher 168 trust the security of the overall system 50 and the certificates 504 issued by certifying authority 500, they will have no fear that the work 166 will be excerpted or anthologized by anyone other than the appropriate types of people they specify.
In another example, certifying authority 500 could issue a certificate 504 to aggregator 170 or other user. Certifying authority 500 could issue this certificate 504 at the direction of author 164 or publisher 168. The certificate 504 may attest to the fact that author 164 or publisher 168 agree that aggregator 170 or other user is authorized to modify certain permissions 404. Author 164 or publisher 168 may have specified permissions 404 so that that will allow themselves to be modified only on the condition that an “authorized aggregator” certificate is present.
In another example, certifying authority 500 could issue a certificate to one or more classes of users, enabling, for example, utilization of content and/or specific portions of content and/or modification of permissions, which such enabling may be limited to specific utilization and/or modification by employing certain VDE rules and controls put in place by the author or publisher or certificate authority (as allowed by in place rules and controls).
2. Rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 in this particular example may be used to register work 166 and issue appropriate permissions 404 consistent with authorizations and instructions provided by each value chain participant. For example, the author 164 could register work 166 with rights and permissions clearinghouse 400, and specify an electronic control set 404 defining the rights of every other value chain participant.
For example:
Rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 might maintain different versions of the control set 404 for different user classes so that, for example, consumers 95 might receive one control set 404a, aggregators 170 might receive another control set 404b, and repackagers 174 might receive a still further, different control set 404c. Each of these control sets can be provided in advance by author 164 or other rights holders, providing a “pre-approved permissioning” system that makes widespread usage of work 166 extremely efficient and yet highly secure, and further, such control sets may interact with VDE distributed template applications in a seamless manner—one or more template applications may be distributed with a control set by such distributors of such control sets (or may be otherwise made available) to such control set recipients. In one particular “superdistribution” business model, work 166 is allowed to be distributed as widely as possible, and rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 does the work of providing current control sets 404 authorizing particular value chain participants to use the work in particular ways under particular conditions.
3. Usage clearinghouse 300 in this particular example may support the value chain by collecting usage information from each value chain participant. The usage clearinghouse 300 may thus provide a secure auditing function, generating, for example, reports that track how many times the work 166 has been used and how it has been used.
As one example, usage clearinghouse 300 might analyze usage information to determine how many consumers 95 have read the work. Usage clearinghouse 300 can, for example, report consumption information in varying amounts of detail and/or specific kinds of information, to various value chain participants consistent with privacy concerns and the accepted business rights of each party. As one example, the usage clearinghouse 300 might give consumer 95 a very detailed report about his or her own particular usage of work 166, while providing author 164 or publisher 168 with only summary report information that may, for example, not include the consumer name, address, or other direct, identifying information.
As another example, reports could also flow directly from the repackager 174 to the aggregator 170, publisher 168 and author 164. Reports may be directed along any logical pathway, directly, or through any sequence of parties, and containing whatever mix of information for each party as is acceptable to the value chain and as may be enforced, for example, at least in part by VDE rules and controls
4. Financial clearinghouse 200, in this example, may provide secure clearing of financial details of the transaction—ensuring that appropriate value chain participants compensate other appropriate value chain participants. As one example, financial clearinghouse 200 may receive payments from consumer 95 based on the consumer's use of work 166, and distribute parts of the payments appropriately to author 164, publisher 168, and other appropriate value chain participants in an automated, efficient process managed at least in part by VDE rules and controls. For example, financial clearinghouse 200 might interface with other banks or financial institutions to accomplish an automation of payment transfers, and/or it might assist in managing electronic money maintained within the overall value chain shown. Financial clearinghouse 200 may also assist in ensuring that itself and the other Commerce Utility Systems 90 are appropriately compensated for the administrative and support services they provide, that is, for example, secure VDE processes operating within Commerce Utility Systems 90 may automatically ensure the payment to such administrative and support service providers.
5. Secure directory services 600, in this example, may support the example value chain by facilitating electronic communications between value chain participants and/or between Commerce Utility Systems 90. For example, secure directory services 600 can, upon request, provide electronic address and/or routing information allowing one value chain participant to electronically contact another. As one example, suppose a consumer 95 wants to obtain the latest addition of work 166 but discovers that the electronic address of publisher 168 has changed. Consumer 95 can electronically contact secure directory services 600, which can provide current address information. Of course, in commercial trading system applications, for example, secure directory services may provide much more elaborate services for the identification of desired parties, such as multi-dimensional searching of directory resources for identifying parties based on class attributes. Secure directory services 600 may also provide services that enable the identification of content, for example based upon content type and/or rules and controls associated with such content (pricing, allowed usage parameters such as redistribution rights, etc.).
6. Transaction authority 700 in this example might be used to assist repackager 174 in developing newsletter 176. For example, transaction authority 700 might help in automating a process in which a number of different works created by a number of different authors were all aggregated and excerpted for publication in the newsletter. Transaction authority 700 can securely maintain the current status of an overall multi-step process, specifying which steps have already been performed and which steps have yet to be performed. Transaction authority 700 can also, for example, help arbitrate and mediate between different participants in such a multi-step process, and can in some cases actively influence or control the process (for example, by issuing new instructions or requirements based upon error or other conditions).
In this value chain, certifying authority 500 and transaction authority 700 can assist with secure flow of electronic orders, confirmations, terms and conditions, and contracts, and can also help to ensure that each value chain participant can maintain the desired degree of confidentiality while exchanging necessary information with other value chain participants. Usage clearinghouse 300 may assist in secure auditing of the overall process, tracking of physical and electronic parcels between the value chain participants, and other usage related operations. Financial clearinghouse 200 may handle the financial arrangements between the value chain participants, for example, assisting in coordinating between the world of electronic network 150 and a paper-oriented or other world of bank 184. Rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 may provide a secure archive for electronic controls 404 defining parts or all of the transaction. Transaction authority 700 may securely monitor the overall progress of transactions occurring among value chain participants, and provide periodic status reports as appropriate to each value chain participant. In addition, transaction authority 700 can assist in directing or arbitrating the overall transactions to ensure that all steps and requirements are fulfilled. Secure directory services 600 can assist in routing information electronically between the different value chain participants. Of course, as previously stated for the present inventions and as applicable throughout this specification, VDE chain of handling and control and other capabilities, including rules and controls and secure communication techniques, would preferably be used as a foundation for the above activities.
In each instance, the financial clearinghouse 200 may collect funds due the support services and deposit these funds to at least one provider account employing at least one payment method. The financial clearinghouse 200 may also provide VDE audit records confirming the source and amount of the funds and the provider account in which the funds were deposited by the financial clearinghouse 200. The financial clearinghouse 200 may provide assistance to one or more other support services in establishing provider accounts and communicating to such one or more support services the account number and/or numbers and terms and conditions that may apply. Both the support service request to the financial clearinghouse 200 and its responses to the requesting support service can be communicated in VDE secure containers (as mentioned earlier) to take advantage of their substantial security, confidentiality, flexible control architecture, and trustedness, and can be processed at each location by one or more VDE Protected Processing Environments. Financial and account information may be provided in the form of VDE control sets and/or be incorporated in VDE control sets by the financial clearinghouse 200 and/or by one or more other support services. Financial clearinghouses 200 may also provide services to each other to promote further operating and administrative efficiencies. For example, one financial clearinghouse 200 may provide services to its counterparts in other countries or in other geographic regions. In another example, one financial clearinghouse 200 may provide another financial clearinghouse 200 access to one or more payment methods not directly supported by the second financial clearinghouse 200.
Distributed Commerce Utility 75 provides significant trustedness, security, convenience, and efficiencies for instances in which customers pay for digital information. Moreover, information creators and distributors can price this information—indeed, any digital property in any digital format—in various ways and in different ways in different markets.
Prior to information delivery transactions, the consumer 95(1), professional 95(2) and company 95(3) may use a secure directory service 600 to locate the network address of the information provider 168 as well as assist in identifying the content they wish to work with. Subsequently, these parties 95 may send an electronic message to provider 168 requesting the specific information they want to receive. Provider 168 may deliver this information 166 within VDE secure electronic containers 152 along with associated rules and controls 188 that control pricing and permissions. Each of parties 95 has an electronic appliance 100 including a protected processing environment 154 that enforces these controls 188.
The provider 168 can price information differently for different markets.
For example:
In each of these cases, local, state, and/or federal sales taxes, as appropriate, are included in the retail price. Payment methods may be provided within electronic control sets 188 delivered in electronic containers 152 with, and/or independently of, the associated content 166 (for example, as provided in Ginter, et al).
A financial clearinghouse 200 ensures that provider 168 receives payment through any authorized payment method. The information delivery service 168 accepts a broad range of payment methods. Some forms of payment are more popular in certain markets than in others. For example:
A financial clearinghouse 200 makes payment more efficient in several ways. For example, financial clearinghouse 200 furnishes provider 168 with a convenient, “one stop shopping” interface to the several payment methods, and keeps track of the at least one account number associated with a given provider.
In this particular example, a certifying authority 500 may deliver digital certificates to each of consumers 95 specifying a consumer's one or more classes. For example, certifying authority 500 may deliver:
Control sets 188 may activate the different payment methods based on the presence of an appropriate digital certificate 504. For example, control set 188(1) delivered to consumer electronic appliance 100(1) authorizes consumer 95(1) to use each of the three articles 166(1). Control set 188(1) may, for example, contain a requirement that the consumer 95(1) must have a certificate 504(1) from an independent certifying authority 500 (or from the information distributor or other party acting in a certifying authority capacity under authorization from a more senior certifying authority) attesting to the fact that the consumer 95(1) has a subscription that has not yet expired to the online encyclopedia. This certificate 504(1) may, for example, be used in conjunction with other certificates issued by the certifying authority 500 (e.g., perhaps run by, or authorized by, the US government or other governing body) attesting to the fact that the consumer 95(1) is a US citizen, resides within the US, and is a legal resident of the State of California.
The consumer 95(1) pays the information provider 168 for the subscription through a transaction transmitted to the financial clearinghouse 200 in a VDE electronic container 152. The payment transaction may involve, for example, the consumer appliance 100 sending to financial clearinghouse 200 an electronic container 152(7) including rules and controls 188(4) and audit records 302(1). The audit records 302(1) may indicate, for example:
The secure container 152(7) may also contain rules and controls 188(4) indicating that municipal, California and US federal sales taxes should also be collected. The financial clearinghouse 200 collects the appropriate sales taxes and deposits the funds in the appropriate accounts, for example certain funds would be deposited in the account belonging to the appropriate State of California tax collection agency 1002.
In exchange for the payment, the subscribing customer 95(1) may receive from certifying authority 500 a certificate 504(1) indicating she is in fact a subscriber and the expiration date of the current subscription.
The lawyer 95(2) in this example may be located in the United Kingdom. He purchases the three chapters 166(2) from a treatise on patents using a MasterCard, but pays in pounds sterling rather than in dollars. To perform the purchase transaction, the lawyer 95(2) may first be preauthorized by the financial clearinghouse 200 for purchases each month of up to $500 US (or the equivalent in pounds). The pre-authorization may be sent from the financial clearinghouse 200 to the lawyer's appliance 100(2) in the form of a budget control 188(5) in a secure container 152(8). The protected processing environment 154(2) within the lawyer's appliance 100(3) may open the container 152(8), authenticate the budget record 188(5), and store the control within an associated secure database maintained by PPE 154(2).
Upon receiving opening each of the three chapters 166(1), the lawyer's protected processing environment 154(2) may create an associated audit record, and may decrement available credit in the budget record by the amount of the purchase. At month end, or when the $500 preauthorized credit has been exhausted, the lawyer's PPE 154(2) may send to the financial clearinghouse 200, a secure container 152(9) with audit records 302(2) indicating all the purchases, their amounts, and the provider account or accounts to be credited, this supporting efficient automation of clearing processes. The financial clearinghouse 200 may open the secure container 152(9), debit the lawyer's credit card account, and pay the appropriate provider accounts their due.
Preliminary to content transactions, a distributed corporate financial clearinghouse 200A within the company 95(3), while operating under the authority of the financial clearinghouse 200, sends to each of managers 95(3)A, 95(3)B a secure container 152 a budget record 188 indicating their currently approved monthly information and market research budget. A corporate distributed certifying authority 500A (in the same trust hierarchy as the certifying authority 500, in this example) may also issue digital certificates 504 (not shown) to employees of the company.
In this example, each product manager 95(3)A, 95(3)B prints selected portions of the report and the budget on his or her local appliance 100, which is decremented by $10 for each page printed. The protected processing environment 154(3) within the local electronic appliance 100(3) securely performs this process, conditioning it on controls 188(3) that may require appropriate digital certificates 504(3) issued by certifying authority 500 and/or the distributed corporate certifying authority 500A.
According to controls 188(3) supplied by the information provider, for example, at the end of the month, or when the budget for that month is exhausted, the corporation's appliance 100(3) sends to the corporate internal financial clearinghouse 200A audit records (not shown) indicating any purchases that might have been made during the reporting interval and the amounts and provider account numbers for those purchases. The distributed, local corporate financial clearinghouse 200A aggregates the sums in the audit records and sends in a secure container 152(12) at least one audit record 302(3) to the external financial clearinghouse 200 to authorize payment of the total amount owed the provider of the market research reports through an Automated Clearinghouse (ACH). Also in the secure container 152(11) (e.g., as part of audit record 302(3)) are the account number of the company 95(3) from which the funds should be debited and the account number of the market research company that issued the report into which the funds should be credited. The financial clearinghouse 200 completes the payment process through the ACH and sends a VDE secure container (providing at least one audit record) back to the internal, corporate financial clearinghouse 200A as confirmation. Distributed clearinghouse 200A may, in turn, send, using a secure container (not shown), at least one confirming audit record to each of the product managers 95(3)A, 95(3)B.
A significant portion of electronic commerce will entail the sale, purchase, distribution management, and/or payment for intangibles of all kinds. Commerce in tangibles has many of the same security, trustedness, and efficiency requirements as commerce in intangibles (e.g., digital information). For the computer to become a true commerce appliance, a distributed, secure, trusted rights/event management software layer (e.g., rights operating system or middleware) such as the Virtual Distribution Environment described in the Ginter et al. specification is a necessity. Thus, even when tangibles rather than digital properties are the object of secure electronic commerce, Distributed Commerce Utility 75 can play an important role.
The company also in this one example
In this example, the company registers with the transaction authority 700, which may be a distributed transaction authority within the company selling the goods, an atomic transaction comprising at least one electronic control set that describes, for example:
In this one example, the company also obtains at least one digital certificate 504 from a certifying authority 500 attesting to at least one fact, for example, that
Number, and
A customer 95 uses his or her electronic appliance 100 with Web browsing capabilities to access the catalog server 1012 over the Internet's World Wide Web. The catalog server 1012 sends the customer 95 a web page 1022 providing a page from an electronic catalog. Web page 1022 may be sent in one or more secure electronic containers 152(1). The customer 95 displays the web page 1022A using his or her electronic appliance 100, and clicks on the part of the web page showing a men's short sleeve Oxford button down shirt selling for $15.95. The current Web page is replace by a web page 1022B from the fulfillment server 1014. This second web page 1022B may be sent in a secure container 152(2).
The customer's electronic appliance 100 has a protected processing environment 154. PPE 154 opens the secure container 152, and displays the page 1022B on the screen. The page 1022B being displayed is a form that has several fields including the catalog number and description of the shirt and retail price. The customer 95 fills in fields for color, neck size, normal or tall person, normal or trim fit, and quantity. The customer 95 also indicates where the shirt(s) are to be delivered, the class of delivery service desired, and the customer's address.
Upon the customer 95 completing the required information, the electronic appliance 100 puts the form field information 1024 in a secure container 152(3) and sends the container back to the fulfillment service 1014. Fulfillment server 1014 opens the container 152(3) and reads the field information 1024. Fulfillment server 1014 creates a VDE audit record indicating receipt of information 1024. Fulfillment server 1014 may also create a control set 188 and/or an event notification that initiates a purchase transaction.
Fulfillment server 1014 may communicate with warehouse 1018 directly or through transaction authority 700. The fulfillment server 1014 then determines whether the required items are in stock and available to be shipped. If fulfillment server 1014 determines that the required items are in stock and available to be shipped, and if the information 1024 provided by the consumer is sufficient to proceed, the fulfillment service sends back to the consumer another Web page 1022C indicating:
The fulfillment service 1014 also sends audit records 302(1) to the consumer's PPE 154 and to the transaction authority 700 indicating which parts of the larger, atomic transaction have been fulfilled.
If the customer 95 determines he or she does not wish to continue with the transaction after viewing fulfillment details, his or her appliance 100 can send a secure VDE container 152(5) to the fulfillment service 1014 and to the transaction authority 700 indicating that the transaction is canceled. If the customer 95 says yes, please continue with the transaction, the customer is prompted to pick a payment method from among the list provided. In this example, the list corresponds to payment methods supported by both the merchandise provider and by the financial clearinghouse 200. The customer 95 fills in credit or charge card number, for example, expiration date, and billing address.
Upon completion of the required information, the customer's appliance 100 can send the information, using his or her secure PPE, in a secure VDE container 152(5) to the financial clearinghouse 200, and may send a separate VDE container (not shown) with an audit record to the transaction authority 700.
The financial clearinghouse 200 gets pre-authorization from the credit card processing company, and, for example, using a secure VDE container 152(6) returns the pre-authorization approval information 1026 to the fulfillment server 1014. Financial clearinghouse 200 may send another VDE container 152(7) to the transaction authority 700 with an audit record 302(2) indicating completion of the pre-authorization step.
The fulfillment server 1014 may send a further VDE secure container 152(8) to the customer 95 with a new Web page 1022D and audit record information 302(3) indicating that:
The fulfillment service 1014 (e.g., in cooperation with warehouse 1018) packages the goods, hands them off to an express delivery service 1020, and, for example, sends VDE secure containers 152(9), 152(10) with audit records 302(4), 302(5) indicating shipment to the financial clearinghouse 200 and the transaction authority 700, respectively. In this example, the express delivery service (“logistics”) 1020 also sends a VDE secure container 152(11) to the transaction authority 700 and to the fulfillment service (and also, if desired, to the customer 95) indicating that the express service 1020 has taken possession of the package.
Upon delivery of the package with the merchandise, in this example, the express delivery service 1020 sends a VDE secure container 152(12) containing an audit record 302(7) indicating that delivery of the package has been completed to the transaction authority 700 which then marks the transaction completed and then may send additional VDE secure containers 152 indicating completion to the financial clearinghouse 200, to the express delivery service 1020, to the fulfillment service 1014, and in some examples to the customer 95.
A hallmark of advanced Western economies, especially the economy of the United States at the end of the present century, has been the transition from a largely manufacturing, “smoke stack” economy to not only an “information economy” but to a “service economy” as well. Distributed Commerce Utility 75 can support transactions in which customers pay for, and in many examples, consume or otherwise make use of services.
For example, the online service 1032 agrees to accept certificates 504(3) issued by a distributed certifying authority 500A from parents certified by the certifying authority 500 (through certificate 504(2)) to issue certificates attesting to the facts that they have children and that these children are currently minor children. In turn, the online service 1032 will not allow children so certified to access certain subject matter materials distributed by the online service nor to accept digital signatures based on those certificates for purchase transactions, unless the adult person responsible for the child has issued another certificate attesting to their willingness to be financially responsible (e.g., unconditionally or for purchases up to some specified limit per transaction or some aggregate level of spending in a specified time period, in one example, so much per month). These certificates 504(2), 504(3) may be sent from the certifying authority 500 to the parent and/or to at least one child in a VDE secure container 152.
Now suppose the child 95(2) subscribes to an online game called “chat.” Online service 1032 has a Web interface specifically designed for school aged children. This service 1032 offers a subscription that must be renewed quarterly. Using an electronic appliance 100 such as a personal computer or TV and settop box with bi-directional communications and a protected processing environment 154, the child 95(2) uses secure directory services 600 to locate the online service 1032, and sends a message requesting a subscription. In response, the online service 1032 sends to the parent 95(1) or guardian in a VDE secure container 152(4), a request 1034 for payment, membership, and member information. The parent or guardian and/or other paying individual 95(1) provides his or her (or their) credit card number(s), expiration date(s), and billing address information 1036 in one or more other secure containers 152(5) to the online service 1032.
In this example, the online service 1032 communicates the customer's service account, credit card and/or other payment information 1036 to the financial clearinghouse using a VDE secure container 152(6) (in a variation on this example, the parent 95(1) may have provided this financial and related information directly to the financial clearinghouse 200 in a VDE secure container 152(5)). The online service provider 1032 also provides to the financial clearinghouse 200 the clearinghouse network address and provider account number. Within a protected processing environment (which may, for example, comprise a general purpose computer locked in a physically secure vault or other secure installation), the financial clearinghouse 200 opens the secure container 152(6), extracts the payment information 1036, and completes the payment transaction with the credit card company.
For this example, the financial clearinghouse 200, in turn, communicates the following information 1038 (this list is for illustrative purposes only and does not detract from the general case in which any available set of information might have been communicated) to the online service 1032 in at least one secure VDE container 152(7):
In turn, the online service 1032 sends a secure container 152(8) to the customer 95(1) indicating that payment has been accepted. In one example, online service 1032 may instruct certifying authority 500 to issue a certificate 504 attesting to the validity of the subscription until a specified date. Online service 1032 may also provide audit records 302(1) derived from the information 1038 provided by the financial clearinghouse 200.
Each time the child 95(2) logs on to the online information service 1032, the child's PPE 154 checks to determine if any certificates 504 are present or known and if so, whether:
Having ascertained through these certificates 504 that the child 95(2) is authorized to use the online service 1032 and is prohibited from accessing certain “adult” content, the online service grants selective access, that is to authorized portions.
Among the features of this online service are distributed, multiperson interactive games. The child 95(2) in this example plays the game with at least one other authorized and certified minor child—adults are precluded by underlying VDE rules and controls from playing this game in this particular example. At least one portion of the software (e.g., executable code and/or interpretable code, such as Java) that implements at least one portion 1040 of the at least one game can be download from the online service 1032 to the child's information appliance 100(2) using at least one VDE secure container 152(9).
Using methods described in the Ginter et al. disclosure, these programs and/or portions of programs 1040 are determined to be authentic and unmodified. At least one of the keys used to calculate the one way hash function that produces the digital signature used for determining the integrity of the at least one program 1040 or at least one part of a program is bound to the identity of the online service 1032 by a certificate 504 issued by certifying authority 500.
As the child 95(2) in this example plays the game, at least a portion of his or her activities are metered according to methods disclosed in the co-pending Ginter et al. application and audit records 302(2) are created that indicate this child's usage. At certain times, these audit records 302(2) are transmitted to the online service 1032 which may, in this example, include a usage clearinghouse 300. Usage clearinghouse 300 analyzes these usage records 302(2), and may use them to determine how much to charge child 95(2).
Distributed Commerce Utility 75 can be used to facilitate a purchase or other type of transaction relating to tangible goods.
In this example, a financial clearinghouse 200 receives a payment 1052 from the company 1042, and disaggregates the payment by dividing it up into disaggregated payments 1052A, 10528, 1052C which it delivers to each of retailer 1046, distributor 1048 and manufacturer 1050.
For example, the company 1042 sends its order 1044 within a VDE electronic container 152(1) to a retailer 1046. In this example, retailer 1046 provides a fulfillment service that receives the order 1044 and, in response, provides a control set 188 indicating the provider account number of the distributor 1048 and/or manufacturer 1050 of each item and the percent of the retail price to be received by each. If desired, retailer 1046 may provide a different control set 188 for each item ordered (regardless of quantity)—allowing different payment disaggregation to be performed on an item-by-item basis. Retailer 1046 may provide this control set 188a to company 1042.
Control set 188a may be conditioned on the presence of one or more digital certificates 504 issued by certifying authority 500. For example, control set 188a may require company 1042 to provide a digital certificate 504(1) issued by the certifying authority 500. Certificate 504(1) attests to the identity of the ordering company 1042. The company 504(1) may provide another certificate 504(2) in the same chain of trust hierarchy as the certifying authority 500 warranting that the person placing the order is authorized to place orders up to a specified spending limit per order. Company 1042 may provide the same or different certificate 504(2) also indicating that the purchaser employee within the company is authorized to make use of a corporate charge card.
In this example, the company 1042 pays with a corporate charge card. The financial clearinghouse 200 first gets payment authorization from the credit card company prior to the retailer 1046 shipping the merchandise. Upon receiving notification of preauthorization, retailer 1046 may ship the goods 1047 to the company 1042. Following delivery of the merchandise 1047, the retailer 1046 creates at least one VDE audit and/or billing record 1052 in at least one VDE secure container 152(2), and transmits the container to the financial clearinghouse 200 (audit information may also or alternatively be sent to retailer 1046).
The financial clearinghouse 200 then completes the charge card transaction by allocating the total payment amount to each of the value chain participants represented by control set 188a (which it may have received, for example, directly from retailer 1046 and/or through company 1042). In this way, the distributors 1048 and/or manufacturers 1050 receive their payments at the same time the retail seller 1046 receives its payment. Control set information 188a may also indicate shares of the total payment and provider account numbers for local, state, and federal taxes, if any, and, for example, for delivery charges, such as to an overnight express company, if any.
This
Distributed Commerce Utility 75 can assist the electronic community in efficiently distributing electronic or digital properties or content. For example, using an electronic appliance 100 equipped with a protected processing unit 154, a creator or other rights holder 400 sends a digital object in a secure container to a rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 to be registered.
The rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 opens the container using, for example, its own VDE protecting processing unit, and assigns a uniform object identifier indicating the identity of the creator, the type of object being registered—software, video, sound, text, multimedia, etc., and the digital signature for the object. The uniform object identifier may be globally unique or may be unique only in the namespace domain of the creator or some other entity, such as an online service, digital library, or specific jurisdiction, such as a specific country.
In this example, using its protected processing environment, the rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 digitally signs the uniform object identifier with the rights and permissions clearinghouse private key and returns the object and identifier to the person or organization registering it in a VDE secure container. The rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 may retain a copy of the object or may retain only the uniform object identifier for the object, and the signatures for the object and its uniform object identifier. In another example, the rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 digitally signs a new object comprised of the original object and its uniform file identifier, and stores both the new object and/or its signature in the rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 archive.
The creator may have also sent in a VDE secure container a permissions and pricing template 450 (see
In this example, using a VDE secure container 152, the object is then transmitted from the creator to a distributor 168 (see
As a value added service, the rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 can provide a copyright registration service (see
In this example, the copyright registration service can send at least one VDE secure container to the financial clearinghouse 200 with at least one audit record indicating the amount to be paid, the payment method and account of the registering party, and the account of the government to receive the funds, and receives in return in a VDE secure container an audit record indicting that the transaction has been pre-authorized (or that for whatever reason, the proposed transaction has not been authorized).
If the transaction has been pre-authorized by the financial clearinghouse 200, a VDE enabled computer located, in this one example, in US Copyright office opens the secure container and adds the uniform object identifier and the object to the registration database. Under a chain of trust emanating from the certifying authority 500—which in this example may be operated by, or on behalf of the US government—the copyright registration service issues at least one digital certificate 504 attesting to the facts that an object with a specified uniform object identifier and with a specified digital signature has been in fact registered with the registration authority and that the at least one person is in fact the owner of the copyright at the time the object was registered. This certificate 504 is sent in a VDE secure container to the person who registered the object (and/or who was named as the person to be notified) and to the rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 who, in turn, may provide copyright registration information upon request in a secure VDE container.
The copyright registration service sends at least one VDE secure container to the financial clearinghouse 200 with at least one audit record instructing the clearinghouse 200 to proceed with fulfillment of the pre-authorized transaction (if all necessary information was part of the pre-authorization process) and/or providing information to the clearinghouse 200 regarding, for example, the amount to be paid, the payment method and account of the registering party, the account of the US government to receive the funds, and that the payment transaction should be completed, and receives in return from the financial clearinghouse in a VDE secure container an audit record indicting that the transaction has been completed and funds deposited in the appropriate account or accounts, or that the payment transaction fail and the reason why it failed to be completed.
Distributed Commerce Utility 75 can further facilitate the distribution of electronic and digital properties by providing a mechanism for renewing rights and permissions that have expired. See
In one example, suppose an employee of a Fortune 1000 company has a control set for a digital property, perhaps a piece of software or a Java applet, that has expired. The VDE protected processing environment on the employee's computer can send a VDE secure container to the rights and permissions clearinghouse 400.
Distributed Commerce Utility 75 can also facilitate the distribution of electronic and digital properties by providing a mechanism for distributing rights, permissions and prices that have been changed by one or more participants in a distribution chain. In one example, suppose a customer has a digital object on her hard disk and its VDE control set as distributed by the publisher. The permissions and prices originally indicated a pay per use model in which the user pays 10 cents for each operation on the object, such as printing or viewing.
To determine if new rights and prices are now available, the protected processing environment on the customer's PC can send a VDE secure container to the Rights and Permissions clearinghouse 400 using its network address obtained from the control set together with MIME-compliant electronic mail. The customer obtained the address of the rights and permissions clearinghouse from the secure directory service 600, having, for example, sent a query in a VDE secure container and having received a response in a VDE secure container.
The VDE secure container sent to the rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 contains the object identifier plus a request for the current controls including prices. The protected processing environment at the rights and permission clearinghouse 400 server opens the VDE secure container, retrieves the most recent control set from the database of controls, and sends via return electronic mail another VDE secure container with the desired controls. The customer's protected processing environment opens this container, and replaces and/or augments the expired controls with the new ones. The customer is now able to use the content according to the rules and controls specified in the control set just received from the rights and permissions clearinghouse and processed by the instance of VDE on the local computer or other appliance. In this example, these new rules and controls have reduced the pay per use price from ten cents per operation to five cents per operation.
Distributed Commerce Utility 75 can also support transactions in which some or all rights are not initially distributed to the ultimate consumer with the content, but must be requested instead. In one example, suppose a lawyer decides to go into the publishing business by combining her/his own articles with other materials obtained from legal information distributors. The legal information distributors have chosen a rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 to be their distributor of control set information for their many properties. With each object they register at the rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 they also register two control sets in the formats described in the Ginter et al. disclosure:
The attorney newsletter publisher obtains a chapter from a treatise on patent law and wants to include a 1000 word excerpt in the newsletter in addition to other articles. Having already obtained the treatise chapter and its retail control set, the newsletter publisher sends an inquiry in a VDE secure container using Internet MIME-compliant e-mail to the rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 asking for the excerpting right and the anthologizing right for the chapter identified by the enclosed uniform object identifier. The lawyer found the rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 using a secure directory service 600 (alternatively the rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 address may be contained in the original retail version received by the lawyer).
The rights clearinghouse 400 checks the object database, locates the control set information for the object named in the universal object identifier, and determines that both the excerpting and anthologizing rights are available along with the prices for each. The excerpting right does not convey the right to modify the excerpted portion. The anthologizing right is conveyed along with controls that set the price to a 30% discount from retail prorated for the length of an excerpt if the whole chapter is not anthologized.
Using a VDE aware page composition application, the newsletter publisher combines several works, including the 1000 word excerpt into a new work, and registers the new object with the rights and permissions clearinghouse together with its control set(s). The newsletter publisher also registers the new object with a copyright registration function, for example, the US Patent and Copyright Office. The newsletter publisher distributes the new work in a VDE secure container, which also contains control sets for each of the separate anthologized works, and for the whole, complete newsletter as well. The local VDE protected processing environment on the appliance of the user keeps track of usage according to the controls that apply to the composite object and to the controls of each of its parts for which there are separate rules. At some time, the VDE instance sends audit records to the usage clearinghouse 300 and to the financial clearinghouse 200.
Distributed Commerce Utility 75 can support electronic rights negotiations. In one example, suppose a professor is creating a “course pack”: a compilation of many different works to be used by students in a particular course that in this example, lasts only one semester. In this example, the professor sends a VDE secure container with a query to the appropriate rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 and gets back control sets for the digital properties listed in the query. Upon reviewing the permissions and prices, the professor notes that a chapter from a book carries a price large enough to make the overall price of the course pack higher than the maximum s/he desires.
Using the negotiation mechanisms disclosed in Ginter et al. (see, for example,
Having obtained an appropriate certificate 504 from a certificate authority 500 by providing credentials indicating membership in the class “higher education”, the protected processing environment of the publisher's Web server makes an offer of a new, modified control set for the property targeted for this professor. The controls have a discounted price, require that the copies be printed on a VDE enabled authorized printer that will keep track of the number of copies printed, and report back to the various parties to the transaction using VDE techniques. Still unhappy with the price, the professor sends a VDE negotiation counter-offer in a secure container to the publisher. The publisher's VDE instance negotiates with the professor's negotiation counter-offer control set and an agreement is reached that and provides a new control set with the new, agreed-upon prices and terms and conditions to the professor, who then goes ahead to produce the course pack. The rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 is willing to grant the reduced price in part because the professor in this example is able to provide a digital certificate attesting to the fact that she has a full-time appointment at the University of California, Los Angeles and has a certain, minimum number of students who will employ the materials. This authentication meets requirements stated by the publisher to the rights and permissions clearinghouse 400.
One valuable use of certifying authorities 500 is for the issuance of digital certificates on behalf of the government. In addition to issuing certificates attesting to identity, legal status, etc., government certifying authorities 500 might issue certificates certifying executables, for example load modules. For example, government certifying authorities 500 at all levels might certify the set of executables that represents the laws and trade practices of their administrative districts. For example, Saudi Arabia might insist that all appliances in their administrative control have load modules certified by the government that examine attributes of containers to insure that only appropriate content is released. The State of California might certify a load module that calculates state tax, etc.
Distributed Commerce Utility 75 can be used to efficiently and flexibly support models for film distribution to the consumer market. For example, suppose that a film and entertainment company such as Disney wants to provide electronic Distributed Commerce Utility 75 to support distribution of its films to consumers 95. Disney could open a Commerce Utility System 90 itself, or it might contract with a neutral third party to provide Commerce Utility Systems 90 on its behalf. The purpose of the Commerce Utility Systems 90 in this example is to support secure pay-per-view/pay-per-use, rental, lease and other film distribution transactions to consumers.
The films themselves could be distributed in digitized linear form—for example, on Digital Versatile Disk (DVDs) or other high capacity media. Such media would store, in addition to the films themselves, one or more secure containers including control sets for controlling use of the films. Consumers 95 could play the films using a media player 104 (see
Media player 104 has a protected processing environment 154 such as a secure processing unit for use in managing rights and manipulating the electronic containers. The storage media might also be played by a personal computer 124 equipped with a protected processing environment and a network connection.
Set top box 104 may be controlled by electronic controls distributed on the media and/or via the back channel. The controls require the set top box 104 to record customer usage and payment information for each property the consumer decides to view. For example, a consumer 95 might place a media such as an optical DVD disk into media player 104 and hit the “play” button. The consumer's media player 104 might next display (e.g., on television set 102) a message telling the consumer how much it will cost to view that particular film (e.g., $2.95), and ask the consumer if she wants to proceed. If the consumer answers “yes”, media player 104 will play the film on the consumer's television set 102—recording usage and payment information for reporting to Commerce Utility Systems 90. The protected processing environment 154 within media player 104 may, under secure control of one or more associated electronic control sets delivered to it—monitor and collect information that can ultimately be used to ensure the consumer pays for watching the film and to provide a secure usage audit. The secure usage audit may be used, for example, to allow Disney, the film's actors and director, and others involved in making the film to securely verify how many consumers watched the film (and also potentially to provide demographic information for targeting advertising or the like). For example, the media player 104's protected processing environment may securely collect and record, for example, the following information within meter, billing and/or budget audit trails associated with particular controls:
In one example, consumers 95 would have to possess a digital certificate 122 issued by an appropriate certifying authority that attests to certain facts. Such a digital certificate 122 can be used to provide a context for the electronic control set(s) delivered to media player 104. Such a certificate might need to be present before the consumer would be permitted to play the film and/or to prevent the film from playing under certain conditions and/or to effect the controls that apply when the film is played.
For example, the parents could obtain a digital certificate 122 indicating that the household has children. This “child present” digital certificate 122 could be used to prevent media player 104 from playing any films other than those that have “G”, “PG” ratings. Such certificates 122 could be issued by the same organization that provides the other administrative and support services in connection with this example if desired.
The electronic controls provided with a particular film on a media such as an optical disk may also specify a particular value chain disaggregation to be applied in connection with payment arrangements. For example, the media player 104 would “know” from the electronic rules and controls delivered to it that the film distributor, studio and the Distributed Commerce Utility 75 are to receive particular percentages of the $2.95 usage fee, and that a state government authority must receive a certain tax payment in the form of a sales tax or VAT. Because this information is maintained within the protected processing environment 154 within media player 104, the consumers 95 may never be exposed to the payment disaggregation scheme and/or its details. (Typically, consumers do not care what the distributor “cut” is as opposed to the studio revenue. The protected processing environment within media player 104 may provide this payment disaggregation locally or through a distributed or centralized financial clearing function 200 as described above.)
Media player 104 can report the usage containment information it has collected on a real time (online) and/or periodic event-driven basis. In one example, media player may report at the end of each month the information it has collected over the preceding month. It may report collected payment information (including disaggregation data provided by the control set) to a financial clearinghouse 200 run by Disney (or, for example, such information may be reported directly to clearinghouse 200). Financial clearinghouse 200 ensures that the consumer's account is appropriately debited and that the various payees (e.g., Disney, the film's distributor, and others in the value chain) receive appropriate “splits” of the consumer's payment. The financial clearinghouse 200 may also provide consumer credit checks and authorizations, helping to ensure that the consumer doesn't run up a big bill she can't pay.
Media player 104 may report the usage information it has collected to a usage clearinghouse 300 operated by an independent auditor (the film's producer and actors may insist that an independent third party auditor—not Disney—performs this function) or, for example, may report such information to Disney and/or clearinghouse 200—certain of such information may be concealed from Disney if required by rules and controls to ensure other value chain party rights and Disney may not be able to identify, alter, and/or remove such information due, for example, to VDE protection mechanisms. The usage clearinghouse 300 may analyze the usage data and issue reports indicating total number of views, market share, etc. Usage clearinghouse 300 may also further analyze the information to provide demographic and/or other marketing research information. This type of information can be very useful to advertisers and marketers.
Disney may also operate a rights and permissions clearinghouse 400. Even though permissions are distributed on the optical media in this example, the rights and permissions clearinghouse can provide supplemental control sets for various reasons. For example, the control sets distributed on the media may expire on a certain date. Rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 may issue new control sets in lieu of the expired ones. Rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 may also issue permissions to provide “sales” and/or to otherwise change prices (e.g., to reduce the price of an older film). Rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 can also issue special permissions (e.g., an extracting or anthologizing right that multi-media developers or advertisers might be able to request, and/or, for example, redistribution rights to certain frames such as an approved image of Mickey Mouse for printing purposes). Disney could “pre-approve” some of these special permissions so that the rights and permissions clearinghouse could automatically provide them on demand. Digital certificates 122 might be used to interact with the permissions—thereby assuring that the user receiving the control set is entitled to take advantage of it.
Prior to the inventions disclosed in the Ginter et al. specification, the electronic community lacked general purpose, reusable, distributed, peer-to-peer technologies that could, among other things, efficiently and effectively monitor and measure usage on the local computer or protected processing environment. Collecting, analyzing, and reporting usage data provides significant value to rightsholders and to other distribution chain participants, to infrastructure Distributed Commerce Utility 75, to customers, and to other interested parties. Understanding what has happened can often be a fundamental determinant or contributor to what might or should happen. In addition, usage information can be repurposed to support a wide range of other commercial activities, including advertising and merchandising models.
Suppose one or more customers in each of several companies have information appliances 100, in this one example such as personal computers, with VDE protected processing environments (PPEs) 154 as described in Ginter et al. Suppose further that over some time period, perhaps a month in this example, that VDE has been keeping track of detailed usage information and storing this information in the encrypted database on each hard drive on each computer that is a logical extension and under the control of each consumer PPE. These consumers have each been purchasing different combinations of information and entertainment from generally different sources. Each instance of VDE keeps track of usage information according to the controls associated with the content and/or service being purchased or otherwise used.
On or shortly after the first of each month, and/or any other required (or, if supported, allowed) reporting intervals, each instance of VDE communicates the usage records to the usage clearinghouse 300 according to the controls associated with each of the digital properties they have used during the previous month. In turn, the usage clearinghouse 300 provides reports to each of the rightsholders regarding any use of a property during the previous month or other reporting interval (e.g., daily, weekly, quarterly, annually, etc.).
In one example these reports contain information identifying both the individual customer and the company that employees them. In another example, the reports contain detailed usage information, but the identities of the individual customers has been removed by the usage clearinghouse 300. Alternatively, both the individual and corporate identities may be removed. Instead, the usage information may be aggregated by any one or more certain classes, such as by industry, geography, and/or by country, and/or any other useful classes.
In another useful example, a particular company or individual customer may have not permitted VDE (subject, of course, to this right being available through in place rules and controls) to communicate identity information to the usage clearinghouse 300 from their information appliances in the first place. The user may have established VDE controls prohibiting disclosure of such identifying information. In another example, the user may have used the negotiation mechanisms disclosed in the Ginter et al. application to negotiate additional levels of privacy and confidentiality other than those required in the various control sets associated with the information being purchased or otherwise used by each customer, that is, the electronic negotiation process generates a modified or new rules and controls set reflecting the additional levels of privacy and confidentiality. In yet another example, a rightsholder, rights and permissions clearinghouse 400 or usage clearinghouse 300 or other party, may have used the same negotiation mechanisms to negotiate, through the use of VDE rules and controls sets alternative levels of privacy and confidentiality.
As illustrated in FIGS. 11 and 33-39, the usage clearinghouse functions that may remove identifying information, aggregate data, analyze data, generate reports, and/or transmit those reports to rightsholders and other interested parties may exist in one or more logical and physical locations. For example, a distributed usage clearinghouse 300 executing on the local computer (or other information appliance) may perform any or all of these usage clearinghouse functions. One or more usage clearinghouses may exist within a given company or within a given collection of companies comprising a vertical industry, healthcare, for example, trading group, or family of companies (“keiretsu”). Similarly these usage clearinghouse functions may be performed by usage clearinghouses within each country or other jurisdiction or defined by any other class and/or geographic variable.
Usage clearinghouse 300 may also provide raw data, aggregated data, and/or customized reports to rightsholders, distribution chain participants, and/or other interested parties. These parties include: for example, content creators, publishers, repackagers, repurposers, advertising agencies and their clients, trade associations, market research and consulting companies, circulation audit and audience measurement bureaus, the sales, marketing, and advertising functions of companies with an interest in one or more markets, and government agencies.
In another example the usage clearinghouse 300 may also sell information to advertisers indicating exposure to particular ads and/or classes of ads by individuals, customers within a company and/or group of companies, markets, and/or other analysis groupings and categories.
Personal and business confidentiality and privacy are often essential aspects of the modern experience. Individuals may not want others to know with whom they are associating. In many aspects of business, firms may not wish to reveal their interest in communicating or interacting or conducting business with other parties. In today's Internet, for example, it is possible for those with certain kinds of access to determine the nature of queries between a given person and a directory service. Such information may provide important clues regarding existing or pending business arrangements that have not yet been publicly announced, a merger or acquisition, for instance.
VDE secure containers provide one basis for secure directory services 600 in which confidentiality and privacy are preserved. In one example, the Corporation Counsel in a Fortune 100 company wishes to obtain the email address of the investment banker in the firm handling a proposed acquisition—but without revealing her interest to anyone else. The attorney sends a query in a VDE secure container to the secure directory service 600 with the name and company of the person she wishes to contact. The secure directory service then sends the response in another VDE secure container back to the attorney. Both the query and the response can make use of certificates issued by the certifying authority 500 authenticating both the attorney and the secure directory service 600. Payment for the query can be handled by the financial clearinghouse 200 who deposits payment in the provider account of the secure directory service 600 while debiting the account of the company that employs the attorney.
Because these transactions are conducted using VDE and VDE secure containers, those observing the communications learn no more than the fact that these parties are communicating. Security analysts have developed techniques for “traffic analysis”, in which the frequency of communications among two or more parties is observed and changes in the frequency of communications are correlated with other information to make inferences regarding the content and/or purpose of these communications.
Using VDE and VDE secure containers, it is possible to defeat traffic analysis, however at some added expense. In this one example, the company could send a VDE container to the secure directory service 600 with an empty or “null” query that would generate in the average amount of elapsed time a return message in a VDE container with a null response. The instance of VDE on the attorney's computer would generate a payment transaction destined for the financial clearinghouse, but would aggregate these payment records with others to eliminate correlations between the pattern of queries and payments. While inefficient from a commerce standpoint, this method of using VDE and VDE secure containers to defeat traffic analysis attacks can in principle be used among plural parties wishing to hide the pattern of communications among them while taking advantages of the secure, trusted, efficient distributed transaction capabilities disclosed in the Ginter et al. application.
The various Commerce Utility Systems 90 may be distributed to varying degrees and in varying combinations as illustrated in
To provide efficient administrative and support services, the company 1070 has deployed in each country at least one distributed financial clearinghouse 200 and at least one distributed usage clearinghouse 300. For example, company 1070 may operate a financial clearinghouse 200A and a usage clearinghouse 300A in the United States, a financial clearinghouse 200B and a usage clearinghouse 300B in Japan, and a financial clearinghouse 200C and usage clearinghouse 300C in western Europe. In countries with multiple sites and within the United States, several of these distributed clearinghouses may exist. In addition to negotiating agreements with information providers, the company 1070 may also have negotiated agreements with a large commercial usage clearinghouse 300 and with a major financial clearinghouse 200. These centralized clearinghouses could be located anywhere, and may communicate with company 1070 via the Internet and the corporate Intranet 1072. Neither of these clearinghouses 200, 300 are affiliated with the company 1070 other than through this business arrangement. Each of the distributed clearinghouses within the company 1070 operates under the simultaneous authority of both the company and the external clearinghouses with which the company has a business arrangement.
In this one example, a product marketing manager 1074JP(1) employed by this company 1070 in Japan acquires a market research report 166 from an American distributor 1076. The report and associated controls are sent from the American distributor 1076 to this employee 1074JP(1) in a VDE secure container 152a. The instance of VDE on the manager's appliance 1074JP(1) keeps track of usage and the payment due the information provider. Periodically, these audit records 302(1), 302(2) are transmitted in VDE secure containers 1052b, 1052c to distributed usage clearinghouse (private usage clearinghouse) 300B and to the internal financial clearinghouse 200B—both of which are located in Japan on the company's internal, private corporate network (or Intranet) 1072. From time to time and in accordance with VDE controls associated with the content purchased, the private usage clearinghouse 300B removes, in this example, individual identifying information in accordance with VDE rules and controls managing protected processing environment processes and sends in a VDE secure container the audit records 302(3) to the external, commercial usage clearinghouse 300. All of the company's internal, distributed usage clearinghouses 300A, 300B, 300C send periodic communications in VDE secure containers 152 to the commercial usage clearinghouse 300. In turn, the master usage clearinghouse 300 creates and sells, licenses, and/or otherwise distributes reports to rightsholders and other parties (e.g., third parties having a commercial interest in obtaining the information) in which the identities of individuals are removed, and which in many circumstances company names, in accordance with VDE rules and control, have also been removed.
From time to time and in accordance with VDE controls 188a associated with the content 166 purchased, copies of the complete usage records (with employee identification information) are also sent to the company's master usage clearinghouse 300HQ (which may be located at corporate headquarters), as are audit records from all the company's distributed usage clearinghouses 300A, 300B, 300C. These are then aggregated and combined for further analysis, reporting, and auditing.
The internal, distributed financial clearinghouses 200A, 200B, 200C also receive audit records 302 in VDE secure containers 152 in accordance with VDE controls sets for the purchased information from each of the VDE protected processing environments 1074 reporting to them. Each internal financial clearinghouse 200A, 200B, 200C aggregates the payments and from time to time sends a VDE secure container 152 with audit records 302 indicating the aggregate sums to be transferred to the information providers as a result of transactions. The company may also provide update information regarding the accounts from which the company's funds are to be transferred and/or the provider accounts that are to receive such funds. In turn, the external master financial clearinghouse 200 completes these payment transactions and sends audit records back to the company 1070 and to the information providers confirming the payment transactions. In the preferred embodiment, these activities occur securely under the control of distributed VDE nodes, and are automated at least in part through the use of VDE containers and chain of handling and control managing multi-nodal, multi-party, sequence of processes. As an alternative example, the calculation for the amount of payment and the completion of the payment transactions is performed at the external master financial clearinghouse 200 from usage information received from the usage clearinghouse 300 (of course, if usage clearinghouse 300 and financial clearinghouse 200 are the same party, the financial clearinghouse already has received such information). The external and internal financial might then, in this example, compare payment information.
This example does not depend on the extent to which administrative and support services are distributed. In a related example, the usage and financial clearinghouse functions could have been distributed to each VDE-aware protected processing environment 1074 as illustrated in
In one further example, the corporate headquarters 1074HQ and its associated headquarters-based clearinghouses 200HQ, 300HQ provide a centralized clearinghouse system through which all usage and financial information must flow. In this particular, more centralized example, all user appliances 1074 report their usage and financial transactions to headquarters-based clearinghouses 200HQ, 300HQ in secure containers 152 over Intranet 1072. Company headquarters financial clearinghouse 200HQ may interface directly into VDE compliant general purpose payment systems that directly support the use of VDE chain of handling and control for ensuring the enforcement of automated, secure, financial transaction fulfillment in accordance with rules and controls governing payment related variables such as payment amounts, parties, locations, timing and/or other conditions. These headquarters-based clearinghouses 200HQ, 300HQ, (which may function as a single, integrated Commerce Utility System) in turn, may communicate appropriate aggregated and/or other audit trail and/or payment information to the individual clearinghouses 200A, 200B, 200C, 300A, 300B, 300C within each country. While less efficient than the less hierarchical example described above, this arrangement may appeal to large corporations who wish to exert centralized control over usage and financial information by acting as the central administrator for the provision of credit and/or electronic currency to distributed internal financial clearinghouses and by efficiently managing in-house collection of transaction related information.
In this example, organization A user protected processing environments 100(A)(1), . . . , 100(A)(N) each have an instance of a virtual distribution environment protected processing environment, and can communicate with one another over Intranet 5100(A) via secure electronic containers 302. Similarly, organization A user electronic appliances 100(B)(1), . . . , 100(B)(N) each have an instance of a virtual distribution environment protected processing environment, and can communicate with one another over Intranet 5100(B) via secure electronic containers 302. In addition, organization A and organization B can communicate with one another over Internet 5104 via secure electronic containers 302.
Organization A's private trusted transaction authority 700(A) may be used for facilitating organization A's internal communications and processes. Private trusted transaction authority 700(A) might be used, for example, to carefully track items sent from one user to another within organization A. The public transaction authority 700(C), meanwhile, can be used to coordinate between organization A and organization B without, for example, revealing confidential information of either organization to the other organization. Below are more detailed examples of how the
Suppose a confidential memo needs to be approved by users 100(A)(1), 100(A)(3) and 100(A)(5) (who can each revise the memo) before being distributed to each of users 100(A)(2), 100(A)(7)-100(A)(10) and 100(A)(12) (none of whom can change the memo), with copies to users 100(A)(1), 100(A)(3) and 100(A)(5) (who also can't change the memo after all three of them have signed off on it) and to no one else. Private transaction authority 700(A) can maintain a rule set that specifies these requirements. Transaction authority 700(A) can:
Organization A's Intranet 5104 might also be used to exchange and/or distribute highly confidential design specifications. Transaction authority 700(A) can, for example, maintain, in digital form, a detailed record of who has “signed off” on the design specifications—thus ensuring personal accountability and providing a high degree of efficiency.
As mentioned above, private transaction authorities 700(A), 700(B) can also provide a “firewall” function to protect confidential information from escaping to outside of the respective organizations A, B. Suppose for example that organization A is an integrated circuit design house and organization B is an integrated circuit foundry. Organization A designs and specifies the circuit layout of a chip, producing a “tape out” that it sends to organization B. Organization B manufactures an integrated circuit based on the “tape out”, and delivers chips to organization A.
Transaction authority 700 can be used to facilitate the above business transaction while protecting confidentiality within each of organizations A and B. For example:
Organization B's transaction authority 700(B) could manage the chip manufacturing process, ensuring that all steps and conditions required to manufacture chips in accordance with organization A's design specification are followed.
The transaction authority 700 may assist in forming agreements between the international parties, by for example passing offers and counteroffers back and forth in secure containers and using the contract forming techniques described above to establish some or all of the terms and provide non-repudiation. Once a contract is formed, transaction authority 700 may maintain a master set of rules and controls specifying all the conditions that must be satisfied to complete the transaction—and may thus provide consequences for different events. Alternatively, once the contract is executed, the transaction authority role may be virtual, particularly in simpler models, that is the value chain rules and controls can be carried by VDE containers whose rules and controls may, as a whole, specify all processes and conditions that must fulfilled, including their sequence of operation. Rules and controls provided by a transaction authority 700 may take international law into account—with differing rules applying to different countries. The rules could take into account various import and export requirements and restrictions, international tax treaties between nations, contain upfront and/or ongoing customs related routing and filing requirements, identify reputable currency transaction authorities, assist in filing contracts or certain contract terms with relevant national and international authorities, manage any shipping or other transportation requirements, assist in establishing conclusive translation services for contract terms (particularly standard terms and conditions), manage differences in international certifying authority requirements and formats, impose societal regulations required by applicable governing bodies, and collect applicable governing body taxes, such as taxes for both national and regional governing entities, etc. Transaction authority 700 may communicate between the various international parties using secure electronic containers, and may securely validate and authentic various event notifications provided by the international parties.
Complex business interactions under the control of a transaction authority 700 may also be distributed within and among, for example, organizations and/or jurisdictions. Suppose a complex international real estate transaction requires participation of several functions within the purchasing and selling companies, several financial institutions, insurance companies, and law firms, and perhaps government agencies in a few countries. Suppose further that each of the organizational and individual parties to the transaction has computers that are VDE-aware, and that within each organization or agency there is at least one distributed transaction authority that performs services for this real estate transaction under an authority granted by a master transaction authority 700.
In this one example, each of the parties to the real estate transaction has contributed commerce rules and parameters representing their business relationships in the form of VDE rules and controls that define each parties role in the overall transaction. For instance, the insurance company must insure the property at a value and cost that the purchaser finds acceptable and that is also approved by the mortgage lender(s). Also, suppose that these transaction VDE rules and controls have already been mutually agreed upon using negotiation mechanisms described in the Ginter et al. application, and that the negotiated rules and controls together with the history of negotiating these rules and controls have all been stored at the master transaction authority for this real estate transaction. The most senior transaction authority may be a master transaction authority 700 or might be any mutually agreed upon distributed transaction authority. In this one example we assume the former. In short, in short, all parties have agreed to the rules and controls that govern the transaction. The negotiation process may have been simplified because the transaction authority 700 may have distributed a distributed template application for international real estate sales, the template being based on the transaction authority 700's past experience or that were created by the transaction authority 700 especially for this transaction as a value added service to its important customers.
Each of the parties to the transaction is, according to the VDE control sets that define this atomic transaction, responsible for seeing that certain pieces of the transaction are completed prior to the closing and consummation of the overall transaction. In some cases, plural parties are jointly responsible for completing part of the over all transaction. For example, the buyer and seller must have agreed on a purchase price. In this example, they contribute their business requirements, including, for example, their price and other variables, and they use the VDE negotiation mechanisms to arrive at an agreement that represents a fair balance of interests. If the electronic negotiation is unsuccessful, the parties may directly negotiate, or VDE secure containers with audit records indicating failure are sent to the transaction authority who, in turn, notifies each of the other parties authorized to participate in the overall transaction.
If the buying and selling parties do agree, in this one example, notification is sent by the VDE protected processing environment that completes the negotiation (or receives negotiation completion instructions digitally signed by both parties through the use of VDE techniques) to a distributed transaction authority, which in turn, notifies other parties, including other participating transaction authorities, that price has been agreed upon. Based on VDE controls for subtransactions, VDE may securely notify a party or parties that certain other subtransactions are now to be completed. In this example, the title search company may now perform their task; an insurance company may now begin negotiations with the buyer for coverage using the VDE negotiation mechanisms. An attorney in the Counsel's office for the purchaser may begin negotiations with his counterpart in the seller's company; both in-house attorneys may interact with their outside counsel using VDE and VDE secure containers in creating and negotiating the various documents whose execution completes parts or the overall transaction.
In this example, each of the parties may have one or more digital certificates issued by the certifying authority 500 to authenticate each of the parties to this transaction and its subtransactions. The financial clearinghouse 200 provides a payment vehicle for various value added services, in one example, those provided by the transaction authority 700. The usage clearinghouse 300 collects audit records sent from time to time in VDE secure containers from each of the participating VDE protected processing environments and provides an independent third party audit of these transactions. The secure directory services 600 helps participants locate each other's electronic addresses while maintaining confidentiality and privacy.
As each of the subtransactions is completed, a distributed transaction authority within the organization within which the subtransaction is completed notifies the master authority for this transaction 700 of completion of that subtask. According to the previously agreed upon VDE rules and controls sets, some or all of the persons participating in the transaction may also be notified by audit records and/or messages that are securely sent from, and authenticated by, at least one participating VDE protected processing environment, including, for example, PPEs at nodes for individuals, distributed Commerce Utility Systems, a distributed transaction authority, and/or the master authority for this transaction.
When all the component elements of the overall transaction have completed, a transaction authority, in this example, the master transaction authority for this real estate sale, notifies each of the participants and each of the participating distributed transaction authorities, that the preconditions have all been met and settles the overall transaction. Optionally, the transaction authority may give seller and purchase a last opportunity to proceed to completion or to hold up the transaction.
This one example shows that Commerce Utility Systems 90, including transaction authority 700, may be distributed to intermediate VDE protected processing environments that support one or more Commerce Utility Systems 90.
Amortizing infrastructure and other resources across many users, building critical mass more rapidly than competitors, supporting specialization to tailor and deliver the most appealing products and services to customers, maximizing negotiating leverage power for purchasing, and building the most comprehensive infrastructure to serve as the best “one-stop” resource for a given business activity—these are all central concepts in building successful, modern businesses. VDE and Distributed Commerce Utility provide a foundation for creating highly competitive and successful cyberspace businesses that demonstrate these attributes. Many of these businesses will reflect the character of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Like VDE and Distributed Commerce Utility, they will comprise a distributed community that realizes maximum advantage by supporting electronic commerce partnerships. They will provide different layers of services and complementary products and services, and will realize great advantage in coordinating their activities to their mutual benefit.
The Digital Broadcasting Network (“DBN”) will be just such an innovative commercial enterprise. Comprised of many different World Wide Web (“WEB”) based sites and services, DBN participants will gain greater leverage and operating efficiency by sharing resources, experiencing maximum buying power, generating marketing and customer information, and supporting a rational administrative overlay that ties together their many, frequently complementary, activities. Much like the consistent rules that enable and underlie both the World Wide Web and the design of VDE and Distributed Commerce Utility, and layered upon the capabilities of both these architectures, the Digital Broadcasting Network employs their inventions to support a highly efficient, largely automated and distributed community that maximizes business efficiencies. In a similar manner, other examples would include other groupings of entities that function together as Virtual Enterprises (e.g. corporations or other organizations). The distributed nature of VDE and the Commerce Utility Systems are particularly important in providing an effective infrastructure for these modern, potentially large scale, cyberspace business activities.
The Digital Broadcasting Network may function as a cooperative of WEB sites and, for example, service providers, with a central and perhaps regional and logical (e.g. market based) headquarters groups, or it may function as a for profit, shareholder corporation in a business model reminiscent of television broadcast companies (e.g., NBC), or it may function as a cooperative or virtual corporation that has some mix or combination of mixes of the above attributes and employ distributed peer to peer, hierarchical, and centralized administrative business relationships and activities. In one example, a plurality of corporations may join together to provide the advantages of size and coordination with individual participants providing some degree of specialty expertise and the body of entities coordinating together in some fashion in a “higher” level cooperative or corporation.
In one example, the Digital Broadcasting Network may be a single corporation that has many licensed franchisees. The licensed franchisees may comprise WEB sites that serve geographically and/or logically specialized market areas and/or serve other WEB sites in a hierarchy and/or peer-to-peer context of Distributed Commerce Utility services as described above. On behalf of itself and its franchisees, this corporation may, for example:
In one example, DBN may employ many of the security and administrative capabilities of VDE and many of the service functions provided by the present inventions to manage and automate the distributed relationships and activities that are central to the DBN business model. For example:
Portions or all of specific service functions (e.g., as described above) may be highly distributed and may operate significantly, primarily or even exclusively on franchise and service network web servers.
While the inventions have been described in connection with what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that the inventions are not to be limited to the disclosed embodiment, but on the contrary, are intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
This is a continuation of application Ser. No. 11/834,784, filed Aug. 7, 2007, now abandoned, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 10/727,324, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,751,793, filed Dec. 2, 2003, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 09/426,764, filed Oct. 26, 1999, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,658,568, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 09/398,665, filed Sep. 17, 1999, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,133,846, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 08/699,712, filed Aug. 12, 1996, now abandoned, all of which are incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 11834784 | Aug 2007 | US |
| Child | 14120356 | US | |
| Parent | 10727324 | Dec 2003 | US |
| Child | 11834784 | US | |
| Parent | 09426764 | Oct 1999 | US |
| Child | 10727324 | US | |
| Parent | 09398665 | Sep 1999 | US |
| Child | 09426764 | US | |
| Parent | 08699712 | Aug 1996 | US |
| Child | 09398665 | US |
