Patent ID: 8646102

Claim:
A method for facilitating issuing rights in a digital rights management system, the method comprising: sending a request to perform an operation on an item of content from a client to a rights-management server, wherein the request includes a usage parameter which specifies constraints involved in performing the operation, and wherein the usage parameter specifies a requested number of times to access the item of content at the client; receiving a response from the rights-management server, wherein the response indicates whether or not the client has rights to perform the operation in accordance with the constraints specified by the usage parameter, wherein the response includes a hint from the rights-management server that facilitates generating subsequent requests to perform the operation, wherein the hint comprises an indication of a value for at least one of the constraints for the usage parameter for which the operation could be completed, and wherein the indication of the value comprises a proposed number of times to access the item of content for a subsequent request from the client to the rights-management server; if the response indicates that the client does not have the rights to perform the operation: using the hint to determine a different set of constraints involved in performing the operation; and sending a subsequent request that includes a usage parameter that specifies the different set of constraints; and otherwise, if the response indicates that the client has the rights to perform the operation, performing the operation on the item of content.