Every Thursday, the US Patent and Trademark Office
publishes pending patent applications. Publication has no bearing on
whether a patent will eventually be issued based on the application.
Still, issued patents and published applications are often indicators
of what people have been thinking about and the kinds of things that
individuals or companies believe may be useful to them in the future. Assigned to Samsung, the first of today's applications addresses ways of acquiring and removing information regarding digital rights objects. Assigned to Microsoft, the second application discloses license management on a portable device.
20050216419, "Method and apparatus for acquiring and removing information regarding digital rights objects," assigned to Samsung.
Abstract
A method and apparatus for acquiring and removing information regarding a digital rights object are provided. The method for acquiring removing information regarding a digital rights object includes receiving a request for data on a rights object from a device, processing the data on the rights object in response to the request, and providing the processed data to the device. The method of removing a digital rights object includes selecting information regarding a rights object to be removed, encrypting the selected information regarding the rights object using a common encryption key, embedding the encrypted information regarding the rights object into a signal to be transmitted to a portable storage device, and transmitting the signal to the portable storage device. A device requests information regarding a rights object from a portable storage device, receives the information regarding the rights object from the portable storage device, and removes an unnecessary rights object.
20050216743, "Binding a digital license to a portable or the like in a digital rights management (DMR) system and checking out/checking in the digital license to/from the portable device or the like," assigned to Microsoft.
Abstract
To render digital content encrypted according to a content key (KD) on a first device having a public key (PU1) and a corresponding private key (PR1), a digital license corresponding to the content is obtained, where the digital license includes the content key (KD) therein in an encrypted form. The encrypted content key (KD) from the digital license is decrypted to produce the content key (KD), and the public key (PU1) of the first device is obtained therefrom. The content key (KD) is then encrypted according to the public key (PU1) of the first device (PU1 (KD)), and a sub-license corresponding to and based on the obtained license is composed, where the sub-license includes (PU1 (KD)). The composed sub-license is then transferred to the first device.
