Patent ID: 7437441

Claim:
A method to distribute policy to a client device comprising: receiving a request from a client device for a list of policy assignments; determining if the client device is requesting the list of policy assignments for a first time, and if the request is made for the first time, then sending a full list of policy assignments; determining if the client device is out of synchronization with a policy server or a management point, and if the client device is out of synchronization, then sending the full list of policy assignments; determining if the client device has been updated before a last maintenance cycle was run, and if the client device was updated before the last maintenance cycle was run, then sending the full list of policy assignments; determining whether an update to the list of policy assignments has been made since a time that a cookie was sent by the client device, and if updates have been made to the list of policy assignments, then sending only updated policy assignments; and tracking the full list of policy assignments and the updated policy assignments sent to the client device.