DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM PROVIDING TRIAL USE AND FACILITATING PURCHASE OF MANAGED DOCUMENTS

摘要

A digital rights management method provides effective enforcement of purchase requirements to prevent users from accessing documents before purchasing the rights, and also provides the users with limited trial access to review the document before purchase. A digital rights management server maintains a database with information regarding users' payment status with respect to documents and their trial access status with respect to unpaid documents. Various trial modes may be implemented, including a “trial period” mode, a “number of attempts to open” mode, and a “summary view” mode. When a user attempts to access a document, the application on the client computer transmits a request to the server, and the server determines whether the user has paid for the document, or whether he should be given trial access, and transmits a reply to the client accordingly. The reply may include an invitation to pay for the document.

主权项

1. A digital rights management method implemented in a server computer for managing access to digital documents, comprising:
(a) storing and updating user payment and trial status data, which indicates, for each of a plurality of digital documents with respect to one or more of a plurality of users, whether each user has purchased access rights to the document, whether one or more trial modes are available to the user and if available, whether any trial access right remains for the user under the available trial mode; (b) receiving a authorization request from a client computer containing a user ID of a user and a document ID of a document requested to be accessed by the user; (c) determining whether the user has purchased access rights to the document by referring to the user payment and trial status data using the document ID and the user ID in the authorization request; (d) if the user has purchased access rights to the document, transmitting a reply to the client to grant access to the document; (e) if the user has not purchased access rights to the document, determining whether one or more of the trial modes are available to the user and if available, whether any trial access right remains for the user under the available trial mode; (e) if one or more of the trial modes are available to the user and some trial access right remains for the user, transmitting a reply to the client to grant a right to the document permitted under the available trial mode; and (f) if no trial mode is available to the user or no trial access right remains for the user, transmitting a reply to the client to display to the user an invitation to purchase access rights to the document.