System for uniquely and persistently identifying, managing, and tracking digital objects

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BACKGROUND

This invention relates to digital objects and associated rights and payments.

By a "digital object" we broadly mean any set of sequences of bits or digits and an associated unique identifier which we call a "handle". A digital object may incorporate information or material in which rights (e.g., copyright rights) or other interests are or may be claimed. There may also be rights associated with the digital object itself. Thus digital objects may include conventional digital representations of works (books, papers, images, sounds, software), and more broadly any digital material which is capable of producing desired manifestations for a computer user. Thus, a digital object could include programs and data which, though not directly a representation of the text of a work, enable the delivery over a network and the subsequent reproduction on a computer screen of selected portions of the text of the work. By the notion of rights which are or may be claimed in a digital object, we mean rights which exist under statute (e.g., copyright, patent, trade secret, trademark), or as a result of private action (e.g., via secrecy, cooperative ventures, or negotiation).

Rights are normally protected under the law by mechanisms that are paper-based. Patent and trademark applications are prosecuted by exchanges of paper with the Patent and Trademark Office. Trade secret rights are often protected by appropriate legends on paper, and by physically guarding paper copies against disclosure. Registration of claims in copyright is largely based on a paper system. Registration systems generally involve providing physical copies (sometimes voluminous) to the registering authority of the object to be registered.

Holders of rights may get value from those rights by allowing others to copy, use, or perform the object covered by the rights in exchange for consideration (e.g., a photographer may sell copies of his photographs). In some situations there may no need for negotiation of the terms, which may be simple and well understood. The working out of compensation may be done automatically by private clearing house operations, such as the Copyright Clearance Center (as to photocopying) or ASCAP and BMI (in the music field).

In other situations the rights holders may derive value by granting to others exclusive rights to disseminate the object in exchange for a royalty (e.g., a book author grants a publisher the North American paperback distribution rights). Exclusive rights are typically subject to direct negotiation.

It is common to provide for central registration of ownership and other exclusive rights so that others may know the timing and terms of those rights.

Making digital objects available on networks (e.g., Internet), gives rise to at least four specific activities of concern. The first is the ease of movement of digital objects already contained in a computer network environment allowing the creation of multiple copies in multiple machines in fractions of a second. The second is the importation of external information, such as print material or isolated CD-ROM based material, which must first be scanned or read into the system before it can be used. The third is export of internal network based information to paper using digital printers or facsimile machines or copying to separable media such as tape or DAT for external transport to others. The fourth is that digital objects may be easily manipulated on a computer to produce derivative works. The derivative works can also be easily moved about in a computer network environment and be subject to further manipulation by other parties. Parallel and concurrent manipulation can generate an exponential proliferation of derivative works.

Several technologies are known for handling privacy and authentication in a digital network environment, including public key cryptography, digital signatures, privacy enhanced mail, and notarization.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In general, in one aspect, the invention features a method of managing digital objects in a network, the objects are stored at locations accessible in the network using a storage technique which renders the digital objects secure against unauthorized access. Pointer information which associates each digital object identifier with a pointer indicating the location of the stored digital object is also stored in the network. For each digital object validation information is stored, separately from the digital object, and is sufficient to permit a determination whether a purported instance of a digital object is identical to the original. In examples of the invention, an authorized user may have access to the validation information, using the digital object identifier, to determine whether a purported instance of a digital object is identical to the original. The validation information comprises a digital signature over the digital object.

Another general aspect of the invention concerns managing reference information about digital objects in a network. The reference information is stored for each of the digital objects. Validation information is also stored and is substantially smaller in size than the corresponding digital object. In examples of the invention, an authorized user may have access to the reference information using the unique identifier. The reference information includes information concerning at least one of the following: registration of rights in the digital object including performance of the object; accesses to and uses of digital object; the terms and conditions for use of digital objects; the ownership and transfer of rights to disseminate digital objects; links between different digital objects.

In another general aspect of the invention, which concerns the storing of the digital objects in a network, the verification information is stored separately from the digital object. In examples of this aspect of the invention, the pointer to the object (versus identifier information for the object) is stored in multiple servers on the network. The identifiers are generated in a manner to distribute the pointer information with the unique identifier information) relatively evenly among the servers, using a hashing algorithm.

Another general aspect of t