Patent ID: 7392547

Claim:
A method for a recipient to receive an email having rights management (RM) protected content therein, the protected content being encrypted and decryptable according to a content key (KID), the content key (KID) being found in a corresponding license, the method comprising: receiving the email while connectively coupled to a network through which the email may be obtained; recognizing that the received email has the protected content therein; and obtaining the license for the protected content of the email from an RM server while still connectively coupled to the network and in response to receiving the email and recognizing the protected content therein, such obtaining being performed in an automatic manner, wherein obtaining the license comprises: placing a representation of the received email with the protected content therein into a queue; retrieving the representation of the received email from the queue; requesting the license for the protected content of the retrieved email from the RM server if the RM server is not noted on a bad server list; and noting the RM server in a bad server list if the RM server fails to respond to the request for the license, whereby said recognizing and obtaining are performed in a manner transparent to a recipient of the email, and whereby the license is available to the recipient even when such recipient is not connectively coupled to the RM server by way of the network at a later time.