Patent ID: 7581012

Claim:
A method for controlling virtual communication channels for using a production data, comprising: storing on a computer readable recording medium a policy that is a collection of rules containing a rule representing a relationship between an attribute of an agent and a role assigned in accordance with the attribute, and assigning a role in accordance with attributes of each agent based on the policy, the policy being used to define a virtual communication channel; allowing agents to communicate with other agents through the virtual communication channel defined based on the policy; authenticating access rights of each agent to the virtual communication channel and contents of a role; issuing a policy certification for certifying that a policy is authentic based on an electronic signature provided to data describing the policy; issuing an attribute certification for certifying the attributes of each agent; issuing a public key certification for certifying that an agent on a network has been authenticated, each agent including a trust engine for interpreting the policy certification and the attribute certification; generating a production distribution virtual communication channel based on a policy of distributing production data from a production distribution agent to a user agent qualified to receive distribution of the production data on an agent collaboration system; obtaining the production data and an auxiliary policy that defines a production use virtual communication channel handling the production data, using the user agent, from the production distribution agent on the agent collaboration system through the production distribution virtual communication channel; and dynamically generating the production use virtual communication channel responsive to receipt of the auxiliary policy using the user agent, thereby enabling use of the production data only via a communication entity implemented by said production use virtual communication channel.