Patent 7596223 was granted and assigned to Apple (company) on September, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A wireless network is established between a station and an access point for the network using a sequence of messages that securely transmit authentication information from the station to the access point for validation by the access point, and subsequently transmit a shared key necessary to establish the wireless network from the access point to the station when the station is validated.