A Counter-Signature Paid Once, and Adoption Without a Ceiling

Section 9 of the filing prices one act. A deferring semantic agent (100) that elects to execute under a determination recorded by a second agent, rather than under one its own admission evaluator (120) produced, appends a deference record (900) and transmits it for counter-signature. Electing to counter-sign, the followed agent appends a deference counter-signature (902) and by that same append decrements its own authorization budget (404) under a deference decrement schedule declared in its signed policy object (112). Paragraph [0309] recites that the decrement occurs without any determination of whether the deference was well founded, and that the units decremented are the units gating dispatch by the followed agent, the budget decremented being the one whose state is a conjunct of that agent's own dispatch-authority predicate.

What the schedule counts is set out at paragraph [0308]. The amount is a monotonically non-decreasing function of a count of deference counter-signatures (902) appended by the followed agent within a declared window, bounded above by a declared maximum, and the count consumed is of that agent's own appends. Counter-signatures are the counted quantity; the number of actions the deferring agent thereafter dispatches under the adopted determination is not.

One filed condition ends a record's effect independently of dispatch volume. Paragraph [0438] has the followed agent emit an adopted-determination supersession record upon appending to its own append-only lineage field (104) a superseding or retracting determination upon the conduct evaluation artifact (116) named in a deference record (900) it counter-signed. That route waits on the followed agent recording such a determination.

Declaring the Count in the Record, Spending It at the Predicate

Paragraph [0442] supplies the mechanism. The deferring agent adopts the followed agent's determination for a bounded count of dispatches declared in the deference record (900), each dispatch under the adopted determination being appended with a reference to that record. Upon exhaustion of the count the deference record (900) ceases to satisfy the dispatch-authority predicate, whereupon a further deference requires a further counter-signature and a further decrement of the followed agent's authorization budget (404).

The bound is a term of the record rather than of a policy object held on one side. Section 9.4 makes the deference record (900) the object the deferring agent appends and transmits for counter-signature, and a second term already travels that way: under paragraph [0305] the counter-signature window field (912) is carried in the record as transmitted and as counter-signed, so the followed agent obtains the window from the record itself and need not read the deferring agent's signed policy object (112) to obtain it. Where a record carries no such field, no window is applied and a non-response is not a declination.

Consumption is written down as it occurs. Each dispatch under the adopted determination is appended with a reference to the deference record (900), which is the binding paragraph [0323] performs on the exposure side, where the exercised transition record (908) names the exposure edge record (910), the deference record (900), the counter-signature relied upon, and the identifier of the determination adopted.

Exhaustion requires no separate act to take effect. Paragraph [0029] recites that the semantic agent (100) recomputes the dispatch-authority predicate responsive to each request to dispatch an action, from state then carried in the memory field (102), and that this predicate is not computed from a previously issued authorization token, a cached predicate result, or a session grant, whereby a change in that state takes effect at the next dispatch request without revocation infrastructure.

Exhaustion reaches one conjunct only. Paragraph [0031] recites that where the signed policy object (112) conditions a requested dispatch upon a determination of the conduct implicated, the predicate further requires a determination conjunct satisfied by an accepted determination (122) of the admission evaluator (120) upon the implicated conduct evaluation artifact (116) or, in the alternative, by a determination admitted under Section 9 or under the standing-determination designation of Section 10.7. That paragraph keeps the policy stamp, the lineage stamp, and the authorization stamp required in full and not substitutable by that conjunct, so a dispatch whose determination conjunct is satisfied is denied where any of the three stamps does not resolve.

Renewal turns on the followed agent's election. That agent must elect to counter-sign again under paragraph [0307], and the amount it then bears is drawn from the deference decrement schedule of paragraph [0308], non-decreasing in the count of counter-signatures it has already appended within the declared window. Paragraph [0310] recites that the followed agent maintains no standing quantity, rating, weight, or count of adoptions consumable by any admission or dispatch decision, and compares no count of counter-signatures against a threshold.

A fresh counter-signature also re-opens the exposure side. Retrieval of the corrector-class enumeration (904) is, under paragraph [0314], responsive to receipt of a deference counter-signature (902) and not otherwise; paragraphs [0318] and [0320] then carry that retrieval through the two-part conformance filter (906), the exposure edge record (910), and the writing of each enumerated class into the replenishment register (402) as an admissible-but-unexercised entry.

Neither party gains an authorization quantity from any of this. Under paragraph [0311], appending a counter-signature, receiving a deference record (900), and the count counter-signed within any window neither accelerate nor diminish the followed agent's replenishment under Section 4.5. Under paragraph [0313], appending a deference record (900), receiving a deference counter-signature (902), and executing under an adopted determination each renew no authorization quantity of the deferring agent.

Paragraphs [0438] and [0442] reach the same predicate consequence and the same renewal requirement, differing in what occasions it. The first turns on a superseding or retracting determination emitted to the deferring agent, and adds that a dispatch already performed is not undone, is appended as performed, and is converted into a fault of neither agent. The second turns on the declared count running out.

What the Filing Fixes and What It Leaves to Declaration

Paragraph [0442] recites that the count is declared in the deference record (900) and bounded. No numeric value, floor, ceiling, or default is stated for it, and nothing further is required of it in the filed text.

Adjacent parameters are handled the same way, and the one worked arithmetic the filing supplies belongs to the decrement rather than to the count. The counter-signature window and the reinstatement window are declared in the deferring agent's signed policy object (112) and carried in the counter-signature window field (912). The deference decrement schedule is declared in the followed agent's signed policy object (112), its amount being not less than that declared under Section 4.2 for issuance of a conduct evaluation artifact (116) by that agent and bounded above by a declared maximum. Of the two disclosed forms, the applicable one being declared in that policy object, a step form sets the amount at a base amount b for each of the first k counter-signatures, k being declared, and at m multiplied by b thereafter, m being a declared multiple not less than unity; a linear form sets it at b plus n multiplied by a declared increment i, n being the count already appended within the window. For the linear form the filing gives one embodiment in which b is one unit and i one quarter of one unit, so the first counter-signature within the window costs one unit and the fifth two units.

Nothing in the filed text converts the count into a further quantity. The conversion bar (502) is attached expressly to the deference abstention entry at paragraph [0306] and to the deference correction linkage record at paragraph [0325], and the operative effect the filing recites for exhaustion is confined to whether one deference record (900) satisfies the dispatch-authority predicate.

Composition With Section 9 and the Other Section 10.7 Mechanisms

Because the bound is a term on an object Section 9 defines end to end, the preconditions of that section continue to apply. The origin-disjointness test of Section 9.2 runs before a deference record (900) is given effect, and a record between agents assignable to a common origin-equivalence class (200) is appended as an attempted deference record and given no effect, whatever count it declares. The retrievability-form verification of Section 9.3 remains a verification of form and of retrievability and not of merits. The deference abstention entry carried in the record under Section 9.4 remains subject to the conversion bar (502).

Within Section 10.7 the bound sits beside mechanisms constraining other dimensions of the same relationship. Paragraph [0440] meters the followed agent's decrement per origin-equivalence class (200) of deferring parties, a decrement being borne once per distinct class within a declared window, whereby a number of deference records (900) presented within that window by parties assignable to a single class is incapable of exhausting that agent's authorization budget (404). Paragraph [0443] tightens the second part of the two-part conformance filter (906) to require a count of complied conduct records not less than a minimum declared in the deferring agent's signed policy object (112), rather than a single complied record. Paragraph [0446] writes an admissible-but-unexercised entry to a lapsed value where its exercise field stands at the unexercised value upon expiry of an enrollment window declared in that policy object. Paragraph [0328] discloses each mechanism of Section 10 as a distinct embodiment, practicable independently or in combination.

The standing-determination designation of paragraph [0436] offers a contrast at the same conjunct. It is written into a counterparty identity record (114) where the invariance count satisfies a declared minimum and the policy succession sequence satisfies a declared minimum succession depth, and it makes the determination conjunct satisfiable by the counterparty's determinations, confined to the designated action classes, to the named counterparty, and to the named scope partition and each partition coupled to it; paragraph [0437] states when it is withdrawn. Paragraph [0442] attaches instead to one record and the determination adopted in it. Both leave the three stamps computed by the agent from its own state and non-substitutable. Under Section 9.10 a chained deference record carries its own counter-signature, upon which the chaining agent decrements its own authorization budget (404) under Section 9.5, the originating agent's budget not being decremented a second time.

Usage Limits That Bind the Holder, Not the Party Relied Upon

Established categories place a count or a term on an authority to act, and each is structurally distinct from what paragraph [0442] recites. Nothing below characterizes any product, service, or party.

Previously issued authorization tokens, cached results, and session grants. Paragraph [0029] excludes each of these as an input to the dispatch-authority predicate of this disclosure, which is recomputed at each request to dispatch from state then carried in the memory field (102). The count of paragraph [0442] is declared in the deference record (900), and its exhaustion is reached inside that recomputation.

Capability attenuation schemes. Paragraph [0009] describes schemes exemplified by macaroons, which confine what a delegate may do by appending caveats along the forward path of a delegation, each holder being able to attenuate but not to expand the delegated capability, protecting the owner of the delegated resource and operating in the forward direction only. Section 9.1 describes the opposite direction, the metered consequence falling on the party such an architecture protects and in the units of that party's own capacity to dispatch.

External revocation and credential withdrawal. Under paragraph [0011], such systems issue and withdraw credentials from an identity provider or control plane and terminate an agent's ability to act by an act of the controlling authority. Exhaustion of the count involves no act of any such authority.

Accountability protocols and remote attestation. Paragraph [0010] locates the verdict in accountability protocols with auditors, and, for remote attestation architectures exemplified by RFC 9334, the appraisal of evidence in a verifier and the grant or denial of authority in a relying party, the attested entity holding neither the appraisal function nor any metered faculty. The bounded count operates where paragraph [0303] confines the deferring agent's verification to form and retrievability, and where paragraph [0309] decrements without any adjudication of the correctness of the adopted determination.

Cost placement is what separates these. Paragraph [0009] has capability attenuation protect the owner of the delegated resource, and paragraph [0011] locates termination in an act of a controlling authority. Under paragraph [0442], exhausting the count returns the relying agent to a further counter-signature, which under paragraph [0307] again decrements the followed agent's authorization budget (404).

Disclosure Scope

The bounded count of dispatches per deference record is disclosed in U.S. Provisional Application No. 64/117,812, at Section 10.7, paragraph [0442], with its supporting substrate at Section 9 (the deference record (900), the deference counter-signature (902), and the merit-independent decrement of the authorization budget (404)), Section 1.5 (the dispatch-authority predicate and the three-stamp conjunction), Section 4 (the authorization budget (404) and its replenishment), and Section 5 (the conversion bar (502)). The filed application text is the operative disclosure; this article is an explanatory account of it and adds no subject matter, and all paragraph and section references above are to that application. Nothing here asserts anything about claim scope, patent validity, or any party's conduct.