Patent ID: 6856977

Claim:
A method for proving ownership of a digital work W, involving a copyright owner H of said work, a registration center RC, and at least one third party D, comprising the following protocols: automatically plementing an ownership registration protocol for identifying said owner H, and his/her work W to be registered to said registration center RC; wherein said ownership registration protocol is a two-party protocol between the owner H and said registration center RC concerning his/her original work W i to be registered, in said ownership registration protocol, said owner H then obtaining a proof of ownership certificate, by way of a proof string proof H identifying said owner H and said work W and, potentially, any other work W″ derived from said work W; and said registration center RC performing a similarity test to prevent multiple registrations of similar works and transmitting a certificate to owner H of a form: proof H =sign RC (Id H , h(W), h(W′), testinf W , reg_time, reg_text), wherein Id W , identifies owner H, h(W), h(W′) denote hash values of a collision free hash function h, reg_time denotes a registration time, and reg_text denotes a textual description of the registration; implementing a proof of ownership protocol which enables said owner H to prove his/her ownership in said work W, and in any other work derived from said work, W to said third party D, and implementing a show protocol which enables said third party D to demonstrate his/her legitimate rights in said work W, that he/she has obtained a proof of ownership from a rightful owner of the work W.