US 7,506,158 B2
Certificate reissuance for checking the status of a certificate in financial transactions
Barbara L. Fox, Seattle, Wash. (US); and Brian A. LaMacchia, Seattle, Wash. (US)
Assigned to Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash. (US)
Filed on Jan. 10, 2005, as Appl. No. 11/32,833.
Application 11/032833 is a continuation of application No. 09/448854, filed on Nov. 23, 1999, granted, now 6,842,863.
Prior Publication US 2005/0138363 A1, Jun. 23, 2005
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. H04L 9/32 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 713—156  [713/175] 14 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. In a networking environment in which an end entity such as a customer desires to enter into an electronic transaction with a relying party such as a merchant, a computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for implementing at one or more operating environments of the network a method for permitting the relying party to check the status of a certificate of authority previously issued by a certificate authority to the end entity before the relying party enters into the desired electronic transaction requested by the end entity, the method comprising:
receiving at a relying party's computing system a first transaction request sent from the end entity's computing system, the first transaction request being associated with a first certificate previously issued by a certificate authority's computing system, the first certificate having a representation of an issuer name associated with the certificate authority and a subject name associated with the end entity;
the relying party thereafter communicating with either the certificate authority or an agent of the certificate authority to query for current status information on the first certificate; and
in response to the query, receiving at the relying party's computing system a second certificate from either the certificate authority or the certificate authority's agent, the second certificate indicating the current status of the first certificate, and the second certificate having a representation of an issuer name that is associated with either the certificate authority or the certificate authority's agent, and the subject name associated with the end entity.