N-tier license distribution
First Claim
1. A license server, comprising:
- means for acquiring a license template from a higher level license server;
means for adding constraint information to said license template in accordance with a security policy, to create a modified license template; and
means for outputting said modified license template.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for the issuance of software licenses through a tiered structure, whereby a software license is issued from a software developer to an end user through one or more intermediate layers of distribution. The system and method for doing so enforces a predefined security policy. In an embodiment of the invention, the security policy is defined by the security developer. The security policy may, for example, address who may use the software package, how many users there may be, an expiration date for use of the software, and/or specific features that may or may not be used by a particular user. The software developer first issues a license template to the next intermediate layer of distribution. This may be a software distributor, who then specifies one or more restrictions on the use of the software. This is done be articulating these restrictions in the license template, effectively “filling in” some or all of the template. Any such embellishment of the software license template must be in accordance with the security policy. In the final transaction, a final distributor transmits a completed software license to a user. At no time can an intermediate distributor issue a license or template that is less restrictive than what is dictated by the security policy, or less restrictive than the template given to the distributor.
18 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A license server, comprising:
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means for acquiring a license template from a higher level license server;
means for adding constraint information to said license template in accordance with a security policy, to create a modified license template; and
means for outputting said modified license template. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A method of conveying an acquired license template to a recipient, comprising the steps of:
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(a) verifying authenticity of the acquired license template;
(b) combining the acquired license template with a computer fingerprint (CFP) of the recipient;
(c) hashing the combination resulting from said step (b) to form a hash output;
(d) signing the hash output to form a signature;
(e) appending the signature with the combination of step (b); and
(f) sending the signature and the combination of step (b) to the recipient. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification