Patent ID: 7770174

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a network communication interface; a processor; data storage; at least one application program stored in the data storage and executable by the processor; a plurality of data resources stored in the data storage; an access-rights table stored in the data storage and accessible independently of the data resources, the access-rights table including information regarding one or more rights to access each of the data resources by the at least one application program; and a resource manager stored in the data storage and executable by the processor to (i) receive a first request, from the at least one application program, for a list of data resources of the plurality, (ii) in response to receiving the first request, provide to the at least one application program the list of data resources of the plurality, (iii) receive a second request, from the at least one application program, for access to a given data resource of the plurality, (iv) in response to receiving the second request, determine from the access-rights table whether a right exists to access the given data resource, (v) if the determination is that the right exists to access the given data resource, allow the at least one application program to access the given data resource without first invoking a rights-acquisition session, and (vi) if the determination is that the right does not exist to access the given data resource, then invoke the rights-acquisition session via the network communication interface though which to acquire from a network server the right to access the given data resource, wherein invoking the rights-acquisition session includes (a) prompting a user for approval before sending an acquisition request, and (b) sending the acquisition request via the network communication interface to the network server, the acquisition request identifying the given data resource, wherein, through the rights-acquisition session, the resource manager acquires a decryption key to decrypt the given data resource.