Method and apparatus for controlling a lifecycle of an electronic contract
First Claim
1. A method of managing a lifecycle of an electronic contract representing a relationship between at least two parties sharing a business process comprising:
- exchanging public keys for each of the parties;
negotiating the electronic contract;
digitally signing and verifying the electronic contract;
issuing role certificates to participants of the shared business process, the role certificates defining authorization of participants to perform at least a part of the shared business process and for using the public keys;
registering, by the participants, to receive the electronic contract;
distributing the electronic contract to the participants; and
performing the shared business process by the participants.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Managing the lifecycle of an electronic contract representing a relationship between at least two parties sharing a business process includes exchanging public keys for each of the parties, negotiating the electronic contract, digitally signing and verifying the electronic contract, issuing role certificates to participants of the shared business process, the role certificates defining authorization of participants to perform at least a part of the shared business process and for using the public keys, registering, by the participants, to receive the electronic contract, distributing the electronic contract to the participants, and performing the shared business process by the participants. Updating the shared business process may be accomplished by modifying the electronic contract and redistributing the electronic contract to the participants. Terminating the electronic contract may be accomplished by modifying the electronic contract to halt authorization of the shared business process and redistributing the electronic contract to the parties.
-
Citations
23 Claims
-
1. A method of managing a lifecycle of an electronic contract representing a relationship between at least two parties sharing a business process comprising:
-
exchanging public keys for each of the parties;
negotiating the electronic contract;
digitally signing and verifying the electronic contract;
issuing role certificates to participants of the shared business process, the role certificates defining authorization of participants to perform at least a part of the shared business process and for using the public keys;
registering, by the participants, to receive the electronic contract;
distributing the electronic contract to the participants; and
performing the shared business process by the participants. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
-
-
9. An article comprising:
- a storage medium having a plurality of machine readable instructions, wherein when the instructions are executed by a processor, the instructions provide for managing a lifecycle of an electronic contract representing a relationship between at least two parties sharing a business process by exchanging public keys for each of the parties, negotiating the electronic contract, digitally signing and verifying the electronic contract, issuing role certificates to participants of the shared business process, the role certificates defining authorization of participants to perform at least a part of the shared business process and for using the public keys, registering, by the participants, to receive the electronic contract, distributing the electronic contract to the participants, and performing the shared business process by the participants.
- View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
-
17. A system for managing a lifecycle of an electronic contract comprising:
-
at least two parties to share a business process represented by the electronic contract, each of parties comprising at least one participant for performing an element of the shared business process, each of the parties exchanging public keys associated with the electronic contract, negotiating the electronic contract, and digitally signing and verifying the electronic contract;
an archive agent coupled to the parties to store the signed and verified electronic contract; and
a purchase/subscribe agent coupled to the archive agent and the parties to receive registrations from the participants and to distribute the signed and verified electronic contract to the participants.
-
Specification