Systems and methods for secure transaction management and electronic rights protection

Abstract

The present invention provides systems and methods for electronic commerce including secure transaction management and electronic rights protection. Electronic appliances such as computers employed in accordance with the present invention help to ensure that information is accessed and used only in authorized ways, and maintain the integrity, availability, and/or confidentiality of the information. Secure subsystems used with such electronic appliances provide a distributed virtual distribution environment (VDE) that may enforce a secure chain of handling and control, for example, to control and/or meter or otherwise monitor use of electronically stored or disseminated information. Such a virtual distribution environment may be used to protect rights of various participants in electronic commerce and other electronic or electronic-facilitated transactions. Secure distributed and other operating system environments and architectures, employing, for example, secure semiconductor processing arrangements that may establish secure, protected environments at each node. These techniques may be used to support an end-to-end electronic information distribution capability that may be used, for example, utilizing the “electronic highway.”

1 . A rights management appliance including:
 a user input device,   a user display device,   at least one processor, and   at least one element defining a protected processing environment, characterized in that the protected processing environment stores and uses permissions, methods, keys, programs and/or other information to electronically manage rights.   
   
   
       2 . In a rights management appliance including:
 a user input device,   a user display device,   at least one processor, and   at least one element defining a protected processing environment,   a method of operating the appliance characterized by the step of storing and using permissions, methods, keys, programs and/or other information to electronically manage rights.   
   
   
       3 . A rights management appliance including at least one processor element at least in part defining a protected processing environment, characterized in that the protected processing environment stores and uses permissions, methods, keys, programs and/or other information to electronically manage rights. 
   
   
       4 - 18 . (canceled)