APPLICATION HIERARCHY AND STATE MANIPULATION

• US 20090327090A1
• Filed: 06/25/2008
• Published: 12/31/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Bhave, Ajay Arvind, Perlman, Brian S., Zagorski, Mark Walter, Zhang, Ning, Soulami, Tarik
• Granted Patent: US 8,538,889 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/105 Arrangements for software license management or administration, e.g. for managing licenses at corporate level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/126 Interacting with the operating system
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]

Abstract

An instance of an application hierarchy can be stored on a client computer to facilitate enforcement of software licensing by a software license component of a software protection system. The application hierarchy is a tree structure (e.g., unordered) that includes a top node, one or more product offering group(s), and, one or more selling unit(s).

A computer-implemented software protection system can facilitate enforcement of software licensing on a client computer. The software protection system includes a software license component that can store and enforce software licensing rule(s). The software license component can further manipulate state data of an instance of the application hierarchy stored in a licensing data store via application program interface(s) (APIs). State data and/or property(ies) of a particular node of the instance of the application hierarchy can be accessed through the API via an assigned identifier.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented software protection system, comprising:

a license data store that stores an instance of an application hierarchy; and

,

a software license component for manipulating state data of the instance of the application hierarchy to facilitate enforcement of software licensing.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the license data store and the software license component are components of a client computer system.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the software license component stores a software licensing rule for manipulating the state data of the instance of the application hierarchy.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the licensing rule provides for manipulation of state data of the application recursively in a top-down manner.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the software license component comprises an application program interface that facilitates access of a node of the instance of the application hierarchy stored in the license data store.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the state data and a property of a particular node can be accessed through the application program interface via an assigned identifier.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the instance of the application hierarchy comprises a top node and at least one product offering group.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the product offering group comprises at least one selling unit.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the instance of the application hierarchy comprises a plurality of product offering groups, each product offering group having at least one selling unit.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the instance of the application hierarchy comprises a product uniqueness group comprising a particular selling unit from a first product offering group and another particular selling unit from a second product offering group.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the instance of the application hierarchy stores state data and a property for at least one node.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the property is associated with a genuine marker associated with the node.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the software license component propagates the property of one selling unit to a property of another selling unit of a same product offering group.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the state data is associated with a rearm count.

15. A computer-implemented method of protecting software, comprising:

receiving a request for state data associated with a node of an instance of an application hierarchy;

obtaining state data associated with the node; and

,

providing state data associated with the node in response to the received request.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

receiving a request to modify state data associated with the node; and

,

storing modified state data associated with the state node.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the instance of the application hierarchy is stored in a license data store.

18. A computer-implemented method facilitating software validation, comprising:

receiving a request for validation information regarding a node of an instance of an application hierarchy; and

,

providing validation information based upon state data stored in the node of the instance of the application hierarchy.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising determining whether the validation information provides that the node is valid.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

providing a request for a resource to a web-base validation component;

receiving the requested resource, if the validation information provides that the node is valid; and

,

receiving information from the web-based component, if the validation information provides that the node is not valid.