Patent ID: 7827156
Filing Date: 2010-11-02
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for determining whether a user from an organization is a member of a group pre-defined within the organization, wherein the group is identified in a signed rights label that delimits digital licenses that a license server has validated, each digital license specifying a set of rights, the signed rights label naming one or more groups and specifying a set of corresponding rights for each group, the organization maintaining a computer network comprising at least a forest A and a forest B, forest A having a directory A and a querying entity A directory A, forest B having a directory B and a querying entity B configured to query directory B, the group being native to either forest A or forest B, the method comprising: querying entity A receiving a request from the user within forest A for a digital license to render a corresponding piece of digital content within forest A, the request including an identification of the user and an identification of the group; querying entity A querying directory A of forest A to return any object therein associated with the group, the group instead being native to forest B such that directory B of forest B has therein a record object corresponding to the group, the record object for the group in directory B including all direct members of the group, directory A of forest A having therein a pointer object corresponding to the group, the pointer object in directory A including an address of forest B; querying entity A receiving in response from directory A the pointer object for the group, thus signifying that the group is not native to forest A; querying entity A retrieving the address of forest B from the received pointer object; querying entity A employing the address of forest B to query directory B of forest B for an address of querying entity B of forest B; querying entity A receiving in response from directory B the address of querying entity B; and querying entity A contacting querying entity B of forest B at the address of querying entity B and requesting querying entity B to query directory B whether the group currently exists, and if the group currently exists, whether the user is a member of the group in forest B, wherein if the group does not currently exist, the user is not a member of the group, and querying entity B queries directory B whether the user is a member of another of the one or more groups named in the signed rights label; querying entity A receiving in response from querying entity B whether the user is in fact a member of the group in forest B; and querying entity A granting the request within forest A from the user within forest A based at least in part on whether the user is a member of the group in forest B, wherein the querying entity A is a digital rights management (DRM) server.