Patent ID: 8209530

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