Patent ID: 7676835

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for regulating access to content within a content management computing system, the content management system comprising a library server computer, a plurality of resource manager server computers operating independently from the library server computer, and a proxy cache server, the method comprising: storing content provided to the content management system on a resource manager server within the plurality of resource manager server computers; storing content access control rules and metadata on the library server for the content provided to the content management system; caching content provided to clients from the content management system using the proxy cache server, the proxy cache server operating independently from the library server and the resource manager server; generating an access control token used for controlling access to one or more content items and metadata of the one or more content items within the content management system, wherein the access control token is generated exclusively by the library server using the content access control rules stored for the one or more content items; providing the server-generated access control token to one or more authorized clients to enable the one or more authorized clients to access the one or more content items and the metadata of the one or more content items; receiving a request for requested content from a client, the request including a client-provided access control token; validating, using either of the resource manager server or the proxy cache, the client-provided access control token against the server-generated access control token; and delivering the requested one or more content items directly from the proxy cache server to the client upon successful validation of the client-provided access control token.