Abstract: Method and apparatus for locally caching rights management information for objects and operations in user sessions. A rights caching component may be implemented in network-based computer environments for which digital rights management (DRM) is applied to large collections of objects, such as Computer-Aided Design (CAD) environments. DRM information may be stored and managed by a rights management server. A rights caching component on a workstation may create and manage a local cache of a subset of the DRM information for objects that may be used in a session. Determining the appropriate rights for operations and objects during the session may be performed by accessing the local cache of DRM information. The local cache of DRM information may be encrypted or otherwise protected. The rights caching component may periodically or aperiodically synchronize the local cache of DRM information with the DRM information managed by the rights management server.

Abstract: Method and apparatus for dissociating binding information from objects to enable proper rights management. Embodiments may provide a rights management mechanism that may be implemented in Computer-Aided Design (CAD) systems. The rights management mechanism dissociates binding information from objects in a CAD assembly to enable rights management at the object level. The rights management mechanism enforces rights at the user level as well as at the object level, and manages and enforces rights at the user level for different CAD operations. Embodiments of the rights management mechanism may include a rights management server and a rights client mechanism. The geometry from a set of files that is instantiated into a CAD session may be interpreted by the rights client mechanism and correlated by the rights management server with the associated files to determine the rights that need to be applied to the parts instantiated from the files.