Patent ID: 7200749

Claim:
A method for establishing an electronic contract between a first party and a second party, comprising the steps of: (i) initially, establishing an account of the first party, the account being maintained by the second party, wherein the step of establishing the account comprises: (a) assigning an identifier to the account; (b) receiving a public key of a public/private key pair directly from the first party, the private key of the public/private key pair being stored securely within a device of the first party, the device being adapted to generate digital signatures using the private key; (c) associating the public key with the identifier in a database of the second party; and (d) associating a security profile of the device with the account, the security profile indicative of the security level of the device; (ii) thereafter, (a) the first party formulating an offer associated with the electronic contract; (b) the device generating a verification status indicator based on a comparison of verification data provided to the device with verification data of the first party pre-stored within the device; (c) the first party using the device to generate a digital signature of the offer and the verification status indicator; (d) the first party communicating an electronic communication to the second party, the electronic communication including the identifier, the offer, the digital signature, and the verification status indicator; (e) in response to receipt of the electronic communication and based on the identifier obtained therefrom, the second party authenticating the digital signature with the public key associated with the account and accessing the security profile of the device from the database; and (f) if the digital signature authenticates, the second party determining a response to the offer as a function of the security level of the device and as a function of the verification status indicator obtained from the electronic communication.