Patent ID: 7272625

Claim:
A data storage device accessible to a processor for implementation in a policy database, the policy database comprising: at least one policy, the at least one policy defined in terms of sets of first entities, sets of second entities, and. actions, whereto a given policy defines a given action that an entity belonging to a given set of the first entities may perform on an entity belong to a given set of the second entities, the at least One policy subject to association with a further condition and, the policy database configured to provide the processor, in response to a request to the processor, with policy information reflecting whether a particular entity belongs to the set of first entities to which the given policy applies to may perform the given action or a particular entity belong to the set of second entities to which the given policy applies by determining that the particular entity may not perform the given action if the further condition is not satisfied at the time the processor responds to the request.