US 7,603,717 B2
Digital licenses that include universally quantified variables
Bob Atkinson, Woodinville, Wash. (US); Brian A. LaMacchia, Seattle, Wash. (US); John DeTreville, Seattle, Wash. (US); Muthukrishnan Paramasivam, Seattle, Wash. (US); Xin Wang, Torrance, Calif. (US); and Thomas DeMartini, Culver City, Calif. (US)
Assigned to Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash. (US)
Filed on Nov. 18, 2002, as Appl. No. 10/298,872.
Prior Publication US 2004/0098492 A1, May 20, 2004
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. G06F 17/30 (2006.01); G06F 15/16 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 726—26  [709/229] 7 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computer-implemented method for processing a digital rights license received from a trusted entity to grant a principal computer device rights to a resource, the digital rights license including at least a right field, the computer-implemented method comprising:
the principal computer device receiving the digital rights license, wherein the digital rights license includes at least one variable, wherein the at least one variable is defined within the digital rights license and at least one instance of each of the at least one variable is present within the license, wherein a first instance of a first of the at least one variable is universally quantified so that the variable can be bound to any one of a set of resources;
the principal computer device generating a list of desired bindings for the first of the at least one variable to two or more resources of the set of resources;
the principal computer device transmitting the digital rights license along with the list of desired bindings to a resource or access control module; and
the resource or access control module generating a copy of the digital rights license for each of the two or more resources specified in the list;
for each copy of the digital rights license, binding the first of the at least one variable contained in the copy of the digital rights license to a corresponding one of the two or more resources specified in the list of desired bindings such that each instance of the first of the at least one variable in the copy of the digital license is bound to the corresponding resource; and
the resource or access control module validating each copy of the digital rights license to authorize the principal computer device to access the corresponding resource as specified by the first of the at least one variable.