Techniques for Defining, Using and Manipulating Rights Management Data Structures

Abstract

A descriptive data structure provides an abstract representation of a rights management data structure such as a secure container. The abstract representation may describe, for example, the layout of the rights management data structure. It can also provide metadata describing or defining other characteristics of rights management data structure use and/or processing. For example, the descriptive data structure can provide integrity constraints that provide a way to state rules about associated information. The abstract representation can be used to create rights management data structures that are interoperable and compatible with one another. This arrangement preserves flexibility and ease of use without compromising security.

1 . A data processing method comprising the steps of: 
 creating a machine readable descriptive data structure; and    using the descriptive data structure to interoperate with at least one rights management data structure, wherein the using step includes formatting display of at least one part of the at least one rights management data structure at least in part in accordance with the descriptive data structure.    
   
   
       2 . A method as in  claim 1  wherein the creating step includes providing metadata within the descriptive data structure, and the using step comprises displaying at least some information from the rights management data structure at least in part in accordance with the metadata.  
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the creating step includes creating at least one integrity constraint, and the using step includes enforcing the integrity constraint.  
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the creating step is performed using a graphical user interface and the graphical user interface provides options for specifying the metadata.  
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the metadata includes information specifying that specified information must be displayed if some or all of the information from the rights management data structure are displayed.  
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the metadata is stored outside the descriptive data structure in a second rights management data structure.  
   
   
       7 . The methods of  claim 3 , wherein the integrity constraint protects the integrity of corresponding content during use of or access to the content.  
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the integrity constraint provides rules about using the descriptive data structure.  
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the descriptive data structure includes organization information at least in part describing a required or a desired organization of a content section of a secure container  
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the rights management data structure is a secure container.  
   
   
       11 . A data structure embodied on a computer-readable medium, the data structure comprising: 
 information that identifies, at least in part, a digital object;    a first rule, the first rule specifying rights pertaining to the digital object;    a second rule, the second rule specifying rights pertaining to the object,    wherein the second rule specifies said rights using a different mechanism from the first rule.    
   
   
       12 . A data structure as in  claim 11 , further comprising: 
 a third rule, the third rule specifying rights pertaining to the object, the third rule specifying said rights using a different mechanism from the first rule and the second rule.    
   
   
       13 . A data structure as in  claim 11 , in which the first rule and the second rule express the same rights.  
   
   
       14 . A data structure as in  claim 11 , in which the first rule is interpretable by a first rights management system, and the second rule is interpretable by a second rights management system.  
   
   
       15 . A data structure as in  claim 14 , in which the first rights management system and the second rights management system employ substantially incompatible mechanisms for specifying rights pertaining to objects.