Intermediated Delivery Scheme for Asymmetric Fair Exchange of Electronic Items

A great deal of valuable data - commercial, medical, educational and scientific - is today stored in electronic format in computer databases. The commercialization of this "electronic" data via Internet is beginning to have a significant economic and technological impact. Outside of cyberspace, at each purchase, a receipt is issued simultaneously when receiving the product. The lack of simultaneity in electronic transactions creates important issues. The scheme described in this invention, is designed to facilitate the exchange of an electronic message, between two parties, for an acknowledgment of the receipt of electronic value items. In order to be easily and safely used over the Internet, a protocol has to satisfy several criteria such as fairness, confidentiality, efficiency or timeliness. The protocol presented in this invention achieves all these goals, by adopting new trust and communication models. Description (Set) Proposed Use (Set) This system can be used by any system providing for secure exchanges. An example is any electronic item for which a receipt is desired or the exchange of any items, which can be described by appropriate labels in the protocol messages. The basic requirement is that from the start (request phase) the items to be exchanged can be recognizable as such by a third party.

Inventor(s): Ateniese, Giuseppe

Type of Offer: Licensing



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