Patent ID: 7587369

Claim:
A method for facilitating a transaction between at least a first party and a second party, the method comprising the steps of: obtaining one or more electronic control sets that specify two or more conditions that must be satisfied in order to complete the transaction, the electronic control sets being configured to be enforced by tamper-resistant hardware in a first computer system and/or software stored in a memory of the first computer system and being executed by a processor of the first computer system; receiving a secure container containing an electronic version of a contract between the first party and the second party, wherein the step of obtaining the one or more electronic control sets comprises generating the one or more electronic control sets based, at least in part, on the contract; receiving a first electronic notification that a first condition has been satisfied; receiving a second electronic notification that a second condition has been satisfied; determining that the two or more conditions have been satisfied; and securely notifying at least the first party and the second party that the two or more conditions have been satisfied, wherein at least the first electronic notification and the second electronic notification are digitally signed.