Patent ID: 8566582

Claim:
A method of retrieving certificates, the method comprising: transmitting a certificate search request from an application executing on a mobile device to one or more certificate servers; for each of one or more located certificates, receiving, at the mobile device in response to the certificate search request, search result data associated with the located certificate from the one or more certificate servers, wherein the search result data for the located certificate comprises serial number and issuer data that uniquely identifies the located certificate and is not the entire data within the located certificate; determining, by the application without user intervention, whether each located certificate is already stored on the mobile device by comparing the serial number and issuer data that uniquely identifies the located certificate in said search result data to serial number and issuer data associated with certificates stored on the mobile device so that the located certificate is not required to be downloaded in its entirety to the mobile device to determine whether the located certificate is stored on the mobile device; in response to the determining, selecting certificates for retrieval after identifying which located certificates are already stored on the mobile device; and retrieving, to the mobile device, the located certificates that are selected for retrieval by the application from the one or more certificate servers, for storage on the mobile device.