Method for providing wireless application privilege management

• US 9,537,896 B2
• Filed: 04/28/2015
• Issued: 01/03/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: Wallis, Kenneth, Goring, Bryan Richard, Bibr, Viera, Vitanov, Kamen, Fritsch, Laura Brindusa, Shenfield, Michael, Rogers, Jeffrey Christopher
• Primary Examiner(s): Zand, Kambiz
• Assistant Examiner(s): Sanders, Stephen
• Application Number:
  US14/698,137
• Publication Number:
  US 20150244740A1
• Time in Patent Office: 616 Days
• Field of Search: 726/1
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/00 Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/20 for managing network security; network security policies in general filtering policies H04L63/0227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/205 involving negotiation or determination of the one or more network security mechanisms to be used, e.g. by negotiation between the client and the server or between peers or by selection according to the capabilities of the entities involved negotiation of communication capabilities H04L69/24
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/08 Access security
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/37 Managing security policies for mobile devices or for controlling mobile applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/08 Access restriction or access information delivery, e.g. discovery data delivery signalling during connection H04W76/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/02 Terminal devices

Abstract

A method for providing an administration policy to a user device comprising a plurality of applications, the method comprising centrally generating the administration policy to be implemented in the user device, the administration policy comprising at least one of an application administration policy to be used by at least one of the plurality of applications and a client administration policy for the user device; and providing the generated policy to the user device.

Claims

1. A system for implementing an administration policy on a user device, the administration policy comprising at least one application administration policy used to provide management of at least one application in a runtime environment implemented on the user device and at least one runtime environment administration policy used to manage administration of the runtime environment, the system comprising:

a server having a processor coupled to a memory, the processor for executing computer-readable instructions to cause the server to;

generate an application administration policy for a specific application including an identifier for the application administration policy; and

transmit the application administration policy and the identifier to the user device;

the user device having a processor coupled to a memory, the processor for executing computer-readable instructions to cause the user device to;

receive and store in an administration policy database in the user device memory the application administration policy and the identifier;

receive an application administration policy request signal including the identifier for the specific application administration policy to use for the specific application; and

provide the application administration policy indicated by the identifier to the specific application.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein there are at least two different application administration policies and at least one of the at least two different application administration policies is implementable for at least a first application concurrently with implementation of at least one different application administration policy for at least a second application.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the application administration policy provides common management of two or more applications.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of additional application administration policies, each being uniquely identified using an identifier.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the administration policy database comprises an application administration policy database that is distinct from a runtime environment administration policy database;

wherein the application administration policy database is for storing the at least one application administration policy, and the runtime environment administration policy database is for storing the at least one runtime environment administration policy.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions further cause the server to:

generate a runtime environment administration policy; and

transmit the runtime environment administration policy to the user device, and

the instructions further cause the user device to;

receive from the server and store in the memory the runtime environment administration policy.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the instructions further cause the user device to:

install the runtime environment administration policy.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein at least one of the application administration policy and the runtime environment administration policy is received over a wireless link.

9. A method for generating an administration policy at a server and implementing the administration policy on a user device, the administration policy comprising at least one application administration policy used to provide management of at least one application in a runtime environment implemented on the user device and at least one runtime environment administration policy used to manage administration of the runtime environment, the method comprising:

at the server;

generating an application administration policy for a specific application and an identifier for the application administration policy; and

transmitting the application administration policy and the identifier to the user device;

at the user device;

receiving and storing in an administration policy database the application administration policy and the identifier;

receiving an application administration policy request signal including the identifier for the specific application administration policy to use for the specific application; and

providing the application administration policy indicated by the identifier to the specific application.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein there are at least two different application administration policies, and at least one of the at least two different application administration policies is implementable for at least a first application concurrently with implementation of at least one different application administration policy for at least a second application.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein the application administration policy provides common management of two or more applications.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein there are a plurality of additional application administration policies, each being uniquely identified using an identifier.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the administration policy database comprises an application administration policy database that is distinct from a runtime environment administration policy database;

wherein the application administration policy database is for storing the at least one application administration policy, and the runtime environment administration policy database is for storing the at least one runtime environment administration policy.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising, at the server:

generating a runtime environment administration policy; and

transmitting the runtime environment administration policy to the user device, and

at the user device;

receiving from the server and storing the runtime environment administration policy.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising at the user device:

installing the runtime environment administration policy.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein at least one of the application administration policy and the runtime environment administration policy is received over a wireless link.

17. A server for implementing an administration policy on a user device, the administration policy comprising at least one application administration policy used to provide management of at least one application in a runtime environment implemented on the user device and at least one runtime environment administration policy used to manage administration of the runtime environment, the server comprising:

a processor coupled to a memory, the processor for executing computer-readable instructions to cause the server to;

generate an application administration policy for a specific application and an identifier for the application administration policy; and

transmit the application administration policy and the identifier to the user device for storage in an administration policy database.

18. The server of claim 17, wherein there are at least two different application administration policies and at least one of the at least two different application administration policies is implementable for at least a first application concurrently with implementation of at least one different application administration policy for at least a second application.

19. The server of claim 17 wherein the application administration policy provides common management of two or more applications.

20. The server of claim 17, further comprising a plurality of additional application administration policies, each being uniquely identified using an identifier.

21. The server of claim 17, wherein the instructions further cause the server to:

generate a runtime environment administration policy; and

transmit the runtime environment administration policy to the user device.

22. The server of claim 21, wherein at least one of the application administration policy and the runtime environment administration policy is transmitted over a wireless link.

23. A method for generating an administration policy at a server for implementation on a user device, the administration policy comprising at least one application administration policy used to provide management of at least one application in a runtime environment implemented on the user device and at least one runtime environment administration policy used to manage administration of the runtime environment, the method comprising:

generating an application administration policy for a specific application and an identifier for the application administration policy; and

transmitting the application administration policy and the identifier to the user device for storage in an administration policy database.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein there are at least two different application administration policies and at least one of the at least two different application administration policies is implementable for at least a first application concurrently with implementation of at least one different application administration policy for at least a second application.

25. The method of claim 23 wherein the application administration policy provides common management of two or more applications.

26. The method of claim 23, wherein there is a plurality of additional application administration policies, each being uniquely identified using an identifier.

27. The method of claim 23, further comprising:

generating a runtime environment administration policy; and

transmitting the runtime environment administration policy to the user device.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein at least one of the application administration policy and the runtime environment administration policy is transmitted over a wireless link.

29. A non-transitory computer readable memory containing instructions for generating an administration policy at a server for implementation on a user device, the administration policy comprising at least one application administration policy used to provide management of at least one application in a runtime environment implemented on the user device and at least one runtime environment administration policy used to manage administration of the runtime environment, the instructions which when executed by a processor of the server perform the method of:

generating an application administration policy for a specific application and an identifier for the application administration policy; and

transmitting the application administration policy and the identifier to the user device for storage in an administration policy database.