Thursdays the USPTO publishes new pending patent applications. Both of today's Spolight Applications concern aspects of digital rights management. Assigned to IBM, the first application discloses techniques for DRM including a user registration request. Assigned to Siemens (DE), the second application discloses techniques for making EDRM-protected data objects available.
20130007894, "Method and apparatus for digital rights management," assigned to IBM.
Abstract
A method and apparatus for digital rights management (DRM) with steps and means for receiving a registration request from one of a plurality of DRM agent devices requesting to register one of a plurality of user accounts and the one DRM agent device to one of a plurality of rights issuers, completing a registration process in the one rights issuer, including establishment of a relationship among the one user account, the one DRM agent device and the one rights issuer; and returning a registration completion response to the one DRM agent device. The invention provides support to the many-to-many relationships among DRM entities, such as DRM agent device, user account and rights issuer, so that the DRM system can be applied to more business modes.20130014286, "Method and system for making EDRM-protected data objects available," assigned to Siemens (DE).
Abstract
A method and a system make EDRM-protected data objects available to users. Access rights to an EDRM-protected data object are produced depending on partial access rights to at least one or more data objects, which data objects are contained in the respective EDRM-protected data object. The access rights to the EDRM-protected data object are calculated by a client computer of the user using an access right differentiation function depending on the partial access rights which are made available by different EDRM servers. A data object key of the EDRM-protected data object is calculated by the client computer of the user using a key differentiation function depending on partial keys which are made available by the different EDRM servers.
