Patent ID: 7430663

Claim:
A method for searching and retrieving certificates comprising: a) performing a search on each of one or more certificate servers for a respective plurality of certificates, wherein at least one query is submitted to the certificate server to request retrieval of the respective plurality of certificates; b) for each certificate server that returns all of the respective plurality of certificates as a result of the search performed thereon, downloading the respective plurality of certificates to a computing device; c) for each certificate server that does not return all of the respective plurality of certificates as a result of the search performed thereon, performing a plurality of substeps comprising i) dividing the respective search into a plurality of subsearches, ii) performing the subsearches recursively, wherein at least one query is submitted to the respective certificate server for each subsearch, wherein the respective certificate server returns at least a subset of the respective plurality of certificates as a collective result of the subsearches of the respective search, and iii) downloading the at least a subset of the respective plurality of certificates to the computing device; and d) storing at least a subset of certificates downloaded to the computing device in one or more certificate stores comprising a certificate store on a mobile device, wherein the at least a subset of certificate is transmitted from the computing device to the mobile device.