Regulating access to digital content

Details Regulating access to digital content Regulating access to digital content

1998-05-15

2002-05-14

Decady, Albert (Department: 2767)

Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support

Multiple computer communication using cryptography

Protection at a particular protocol layer

C713S185000, C713S152000, C705S053000, C705S056000, C705S057000, C705S058000, C705S059000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06389541

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND
This invention relates to regulating access to an object containing digital information or content stored at a client computer.
Content traditionally has been packaged in physical form, and physically delivered from one point to another. For example, the stories and images contained in most morning newspapers are arranged in electronic form, on computers, but the newspapers are published in printed form and delivered to the subscribers' doorsteps by newspaper carriers. Business documents that need to be delivered to an associate or customer often are placed in an envelope and delivered by an overnight express service to their destination.
Computer networks, including public switched networks using Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) such as the Internet, represent a potentially economical and efficient conduit for the electronic delivery of content. Digital files including text, graphics, sound, video, or any number of media formats can be created, and stored electronically, and delivered from one point to another via a network.
Applications for transfer of content via computer networks have proliferated in recent years, in part due to the popularity of the Internet. For example, one widely used application is electronic mail (“email”), a messaging protocol for the delivery of text-based messages from one user to another. An email message also can include attachments, which are files that the sending party selected and designated for delivery along with the email message.
Another application, the Internet browser, provides a mechanism for viewing World Wide Web (“Web”) pages. Web pages are multimedia files written in a hypertext format, for example, utilizing the hypertext mark-up language (HTML), and stored at servers computers (“Web servers”) on the Internet. A Web server responds to a request from a client to view a Web page by downloading the appropriate file to the client. The file is displayed by the client's browser, and usually is stored in the client's cache directory and/or memory along with other recently accessed Web page files. Each time a user at the client computer wishes to view a new Web page, the user must enter the address, or Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of the file corresponding to the Web page, or select a hypertext link corresponding to the URL of that page. The client then requests from the Web server the file at the designated URL, and the server delivers this file to the client.
Because content often is produced originally in digital form, a potential has arisen for the producers of such content to sell directly to their customers, without the need for physical production or a distribution chain, or third-party sales intermediaries such as retailers. For example, authors or publishers may offer their books for sale in digital form on the Internet, for immediate download by customers, without incurring the cost of printing and distributing the book in paper form. Likewise, newspaper publishers could deliver their daily content electronically, to the user's home computer desktop, instead of in paper form to their doorstep, and music producers could sell their recordings online without producing and distributing tapes or compact disks. Electronic distribution could result in cost savings to the consumer and increased profitability to the content producer, due to the reduction in printing and distribution costs.
In an electronic delivery or distribution scheme, a baseline requirement is that content producers or sellers must have a way to regulate access to their product, for example, by first receiving payment before making the content accessible. Furthermore, since digital files are extremely easy to copy and distribute, sellers and producers have an interest in locking or encrypting the files containing the content, so as to limit access to those who have paid for it.
The efficacy and desirability of delivering and receiving content via a computer network such as the Internet is determined by several additional factors. For example, the speed and capacity of the server and client computers, and the communication link therebetween, may significantly affect content delivery and sometimes prohibit, as a practical matter, delivery of certain media formats. The speed of file transfer is affected by, among other things, the bandwidth of the communications link between the server and the client, the traffic on the network at the time of file transfer, and the size of the file(s) to be transferred. While small, plain text files normally can be delivered quickly using existing systems and networks, other file types, such as multimedia files containing graphics or sound, can be quite large and therefore may take significantly longer time to deliver. This is particularly true of delivery to home computers, which usually have a relatively low-bandwidth connection (e.g. a modem and standard telephone line) to the network. Also, memory capacities, including Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) and disk space, can limit the size and complexity of files that can be executed and stored by a client or server computer.
Factors associated with maintaining a network connection also may affect the desirability of electronic content delivery, particularly from the standpoint of the client. For example, most Web sites consist of multiple pages including hypertext links to related pages at the same server, and to other Web sites located at other servers. When browsing, or jumping from page to page, on the Web, an Internet connection should be maintained continuously, because each file is accessed by a separate request from the client. Maintaining a connection can be inconvenient because it may tie up the user's telephone line, the connection may be slow (requiring the user periodically to wait for the next page to be downloaded), or the connection may terminate unexpectedly before the user has completed viewing the document. Moreover, some Internet access providers charge customers based on connection time, so maintaining a connection over a long period of time can become expensive.
Yet another factor associated with electronic content delivery is the level of privacy protection afforded the sending and receiving parties. For example, electronic documents undergoing transmission may contain confidential business information, thus users may be reluctant to deliver such documents over a computer network for fear that the document may be intercepted by a third party, either intentionally or unintentionally. A message sent via a packet-switching network such as the Internet passes through many different computers on the network, or nodes, on the way to its final destination. The message potentially could be intercepted at any one of these nodes, or at the final destination.
Also important for content delivery are the attractiveness and ease of use of interfaces presented to the user for interacting with the computer or other content-providing vehicle. In the physical world, interfaces are important for a variety of purposes. A newspaper, for example, is arranged to have an aesthetically pleasing layout, eye-catching graphics and titles, and easy browsing from one page to the next, in order to facilitate viewing its content. Also, an interface can govern the manners in which separate physical documents are arranged and delivered. When sending physical documents, for example, related documents often are grouped by paperclip or staple, or by packaging in an envelope. Like the physical world, in the digital environment, using a network for sending a document, receiving a document, viewing a document, paying for a document, or requesting permission to access a document all may be controlled through user interfaces. The properties and characteristics of the particular interface(s) used will affect the desirability of conducting such operations electronically.
SUMMARY
Access to digital content is regulated by the mechanisms described herein, based on, for example, proper payment or other authorization information submitted by a u

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