Patent ID: 7020635

Claim:
A system for electronic commerce transactions that provides for tracking the usage of rented digital assets over a computer network, the system comprising: a server including an asset database, the asset database to store a digital asset, a title of the digital asset, and a server usage count for the digital asset; a computing device coupled to the server over the computer network, the computing device to store a rented digital asset downloaded from the server and an asset usage count list that includes a title of the rented digital asset and a usage count indicating the amount of usage of the rented digital asset by the computing device; a security device coupled to the computing device, the security device storing a unique identifier associated with the security device and a user key associated with the unique identifier, the server including a user information database storing a plurality of registered unique identifiers and a plurality of user keys, the server requesting the unique identifier and proof of knowledge of the user key when a computing device attempts to log on to the server in order to identify the security device, and if the security device is identified by the server, allowing the computing device to be associated with a user's data in the user information database; wherein the server: uploads the asset usage count list from the computing device; matches the title of the rented digital asset from the asset usage count list of the computing device with the title of the digital asset in the asset database; and adds the usage count from the asset usage count list of the computing device to the server usage count for the digital asset in the asset database of the server.