Patent ID: 7512798

Claim:
A method of propagating rights management protection to an email and to an attachment of the email, the attachment comprising a rights-management-protectable attachment, the method comprising: generating a content key; generating a bind identifier; generating rights data including the generated content key and the generated bind identifier, wherein the rights data sets forth each entity having rights with respect to the email and the rights-management-protectable attachment, and wherein the rights data further sets forth a description of the particular rights associated with each entity; applying rights management protection to the rights-management-protectable attachment of the email based on the generated content key, the generated bind identifier, and the generated rights data, wherein the generated rights data is attached to the rights-management-protectable attachment; attaching the rights-management-protectable attachment to the email; and applying rights management protection to the email based on the generated content key, the generated bind identifier, and the generated rights data, wherein the generated rights data is attached to the email, and wherein the rights-management-protected email and the rights-management-protectable attachment thereof share the generated content key, the generated bind identifier, and the generated rights data such that a license obtained for the rights-management-protected email and having therein the generated bind identifier and the generated content key can be applied to render the rights-management-protected email and also the rights-management-protectable attachment thereof.