Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 14
Claim 1
Independent Claim
207 words
A method of protecting electronically published documents, which comprises: operating a computer system and network for electronic publication of documents, and including therein the steps of: a.) receiving requests for documents from a plurality of users having computers with display devices or printers, said computers being connected by said network to said computer system, said requests including unique user identification for each of said plurality of users; b.) authenticating said requests from said plurality of users with a copyright server; c.) using said copyright server to direct a document server to act upon proper authentication of each request; d.) in response to direction from said copyright server, using a document server to create encrypted documents along with a unique identification for each authenticated request and forwarding said documents to each authenticated request user through said network to corresponding agents of each authenticated request user, each of said agents being selected from display agents and printer agents; e.) encoding said documents so that each document created is uniquely encoded based upon said unique identification; and, f.) decrypting said documents at each of said agents and making said documents available for use only in response to receiving correct secret keys provided by said authenticated request user to said agents.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
33 words
The method of claim 1 wherein said document server also compresses said documents and said agents uncompress said documents in response to receiving a correct secret key provided by said authenticated request user.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
41 words
The method of claim 1 wherein said plurality of users have the same agents that uses an algorithm that derives a key from a system identifier to allow decryption and display in subsequent response to a unique, correct user secret key.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
32 words
The method of claim 1 wherein said plurality of users receive agents with each document forwarded, all such agents being the same for a given document and different from publication to publication.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
24 words
The method of claim 1 wherein said plurality of users receive agents with each document forwarded, all such agents being different from one another.
Claim 6
Independent Claim
211 words
A method of protecting electronically published documents, which comprises: operating a computer system and network for electronic publication of documents and including therein, the steps of: (a) receiving requests for documents from a plurality of users having computers with display devices or printers, said computers being connected by said network to said computer system, said requests including unique user identification for each of said plurality of users; (b) authenticating said requests from said plurality of users with a copyright server; (c) using said copyright server to direct a document server to act upon proper authentication of each request; (d) in response to direction from said copyright server, using a document server to create compressed and encrypted documents for each authenticated request, and forwarding said documents to each authenticated request user through said network to corresponding agents of each authenticated request user, each of said agents being selected from display agents and printer agents; (e) encoding said documents so that each document created is uniquely encoded with encoding corresponding to each of said plurality of users; and, (f) decrypting and uncompressing said documents at each of said agents and making said documents available for use only in response to receiving correct secret keys provided by said authenticated request user to said agents.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
22 words
The method of claim 1 or 6 wherein said agents are pre-installed as software into each of said plurality of users' computers.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
27 words
The method of claim 1 or 6 wherein said agents are software programs which are transmitted to said plurality of users only after requests have been authenticated.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
28 words
The method of claim 1 or 6 wherein said agents are pre-installed as computerware selected from hardware and firmware, into user hardware selected from display devices and printers.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
21 words
The method of claim 1 or 6 wherein each of said agents has a unique internal code corresponding to its user.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim
27 words
The method of claim 1, 6, 7 or 9 wherein each of said agents is capable of decrypting only a single, uniquely encoded version of documents published.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
40 words
The method of claim 6 wherein said agents are pre-installed as firmware into user hardware selected from display devices and printers, and wherein each of said agents is capable of decrypting only a single, uniquely encoded version of documents published.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim
17 words
The method of claim 1 or 6 wherein said documents are uniquely encoded by the document server.
Claim 14
Dependent Claim
21 words
The method of claim 1 or 6 wherein said documents are uniquely encoded after being forwarded to each authenticated request user.