Patent ID: 7383434

Claim:
A system for accessing and validating a digital certificate, comprising: a first set of certificate authorities connected to a communication network and operative to receive and respond to requests for certificates; said first set of certificate authorities having a set of hierarchical trust relationships among them, said set of hierarchical trust relationships being verified by a set of hierarchical trust digital certificates; a certificate holder having a digital certificate issued by one of said first set of certificate authorities; a certificate verifier connected to said communication network and having a trust relationship with a second set of certificate authorities; and a certificate distribution center connected to said communication network and operable to receive a request from said certificate verifier for a validated copy of said digital certificate, obtain said digital certificate from said one of said first set of certificate authorities, obtain a subset of digital certificates of said set of digital certificates necessary to validate said digital certificate, and return to said certificate verifier a validated copy of said digital certificate, at least one revocation list server having a list of digital certificates that have been revoked; and a certificate cache, wherein said certificate distribution center additionally obtains from said certificate cache a cached copy of one of said digital certificate and said set of hierarchical trust digital certificates and verifies with said at least one revocation server the validity thereof prior to contacting said second set of certificate authorities; wherein said certificate distribution center determines said subset of digital certificates of said set of digital certificates based on said second set of certificate authorities.