US 5,915,019 · Granted 1999-06-22

The 1997 Patent That Tried to Lock Down Digital Rights

Imagine if every song, movie, or ebook you downloaded came with digital locks that controlled exactly how you could use it—and no amount of tech tinkering could break those rules. This patent describes a system that companies could use to put those invisible chains on digital content, making sure creators got paid and pirates couldn't copy freely.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a distributed system for tracking and controlling how digital information is used across computers and networks. What's protected here is the architecture itself: hardware and software working together to enforce rules about who can access content, when, how many times, and in what form. It's the backbone of a digital rights management (DRM) system—the technology that decides whether you can copy, share, or modify protected files.

Why it matters

This patent sits at the foundation of digital rights protection technology that became central to music, film, and software industries. Filed in 1997, it arrived just as the internet was exploding and companies were terrified of piracy. The patent claims cover methods that would influence how companies like Apple, Microsoft, and entertainment studios built their own copy-protection systems for decades. It represents an early, ambitious attempt to turn computers into gatekeepers of content.

Real-world use

Every time you buy a song on iTunes or rent a movie on a streaming service, you're bumping up against the kinds of digital locks this patent describes—systems that ensure the content plays on authorized devices but resists unauthorized copying.

Original USPTO abstract

The present invention provides systems and methods for secure transaction management and electronic rights protection. Electronic appliances such as computers equipped in accordance with the present invention help to ensure that information is accessed and used only in authorized ways, and maintain the integrity, availability, and/or confidentiality of the information. Such electronic appliances provide a distributed virtual distribution environment (VDE) that may enforce a secure chain of handling and control, for example, to control and/or meter or otherwise monitor use of electronically stored or disseminated information. Such a virtual distribution environment may be used to protect rights of various participants in electronic commerce and other electronic or electronic-facilitated transactions. Distributed and other operating systems, environments and architectures, such as, for example, those using tamper-resistant hardware-based processors, may establish security at each node. These techniques may be used to support an all-electronic information distribution, for example, utilizing the "electronic highway.

Patent details

Publication number: US 5,915,019
Filing date: 1997-01-08
Grant date: 1999-06-22
Assignee: Intertrust Technologies Corp.
Inventor(s): GINTER; KARL L., SHEAR; VICTOR H., SPAHN; FRANCIS J., VAN WIE; DAVID M.
CPC class: G06Q50/184

View original record on Google Patents →

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