Patent ID: 8806661

Claim:
A method for distributing an electronic document, comprising: registering a first authorization certificate of an electronic document, wherein the first authorization certificate comprises authorized copies information of the electronic document; taking the authorized copies information of the electronic document in the first authorization certificate as a first authorized copies information of the electronic document; wherein the first authorized copies information records a first number of authorized copies for the electronic document a local user may distribute, every time distributing the electronic document to a user the method comprises: sending second authorized copies information to the user, wherein the second authorized copies information records a second number of authorized copies for the electronic document the user may distribute, and the second number of authorized copies is less than or equal to the first number of authorized copies currently recorded in the first authorized copies information; updating the first authorized copies information, updated first number of authorized copies recorded in the updated first authorized copies information is equal to a value obtained by subtracting the second number of authorized copies from the first number of authorized copies recorded in the first authorized copies information last time; before registering the first authorization certificate of the electronic document, determining whether there is a registered authorization certificate which is same with the first authorization certificate; wherein, determining whether there is a registered authorization certificate which is same with the first authorization certificate comprises: determining whether there is a registered authorization certificate having the same copies information with that of the first authorization certificate; refusing to register the first authorization certificate of the electronic document if there is a registered authorization certificate which is same with the first authorization certificate.