Patent ID: 7694131

Claim:
In a network computing environment, a method of providing security tokens, the method comprising a computing system performing the following: receiving a request for a security token; packaging one or more rich pointers referencing one or more security tokens and pointing to locations where one or more actual security tokens can be retrieved such that the one or more rich pointers appear to a client to be one or more security tokens, but whereafter the pointers are consumed by another application to obtain the actual security tokens; in response to the request for a security token and in place of a security token, sending one or more rich pointers referencing one or more security tokens, the rich pointers pointing to locations where one or more actual security tokens can be retrieved, and wherein when only a single pointer is sent, the pointer is a reference other than an HTTP URL; whereafter, the pointer is presented to a service by the client as a security token to access functionality of the service, without the client actually presenting the security token pointed to in the pointer; and whereafter the service obtains the security token from a security token provider pointed to in the pointer allowing the client to access the functionality of the service without the client obtaining or presenting the actual security token pointed to in the pointer.