Patent ID: 7581106

Claim:
A method for using digital certificates to facilitate enforcing licensing terms for applications that manipulate documents, comprising: performing the following via a particular computing device: obtaining a credential, wherein the credential includes a private key and a digital certificate containing a corresponding public key and a profile specifying allowed operations permitted to be performed on documents signed with the credential; based on said allowed operations specified by the digital certificate, configuring features of a particular application residing on and executable by said particular computing device; digitally signing a document with the credential, wherein said digitally signing comprises digitally signing the document with the private key and including a copy of the digital certificate within said document; and providing to an other application residing on and executable by an other computing device, an indication of operations that the other application is permitted to perform on said document in accordance with said allowed operations specified by the digital certificate; wherein providing the indication comprises providing the digitally signed document to said other application.