Supplementary trust model for software licensing/commercial digital distribution policy

• US 8,091,142 B2
• Filed: 04/26/2005
• Issued: 01/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/26/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Pandya, Ravi, Ivanov, Lazar, Paramasivam, Muthukrishnan, Gunyakti, Caglar, Gui, Dongmei, Liu, Yeu, Hsu, Scott W. P.
• Primary Examiner(s): ZIA, SYED
• Application Number:
  US11/114,509
• Publication Number:
  US 20060242081A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,443 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 726/30
• 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 21/1063 Personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/1073 Conversion
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/57 Certifying or maintaining trusted computer platforms, e.g. secure boots or power-downs, version controls, system software checks, secure updates or assessing vulnerabilities
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2105 Dual mode as a secondary aspect
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2141 Access rights, e.g. capability lists, access control lists, access tables, access matrices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2145 Inheriting rights or properties, e.g., propagation of permissions or restrictions within a hierarchy
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2463/101 applying security measures for digital rights management data processing systems or methods, specially adapted for commerce, e.g. marketing, shopping, billing, auctions or e-commerce G06Q30/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0823 using certificates cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication involving certificates H04L9/3263
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/126 the source of the received data

Abstract

A flexible use licensing system for an application comprising a plurality of licensable products is provided comprising an application level product policy definition license, and a licensable product policy definition license corresponding to each licensable product. The flexible use license further comprises a rights account certificate for validating the use license against a variety of environmental conditions, and an external validation component for validating the use license at a licensing authority without the transmittal of the entire use license.

Claims

1. A method for using a licensing architecture domain to minimize the amount of resources impacted in authorizing a request to use a software product, the method being implemented on a computer and comprising:

the computer receiving the request to use the software product;

the computer retrieving product policies from one or more licenses, each product policy granting a usage right and having an aggregation type that specifies how each product policy should be aggregated with other product policies;

the computer aggregating the product policies according to the aggregation type to determine permitted usages in the one or more licenses without contacting a licensing authority, said aggregating comprising authenticating the retrieved licenses and only aggregating the product policies when the retrieved licenses are successfully authenticated; and

the computer allowing the requested usage when the requested usage complies with the permitted usages.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the computer allowing the requested usage when it is determined by the computer that the requested usage complies with the permitted usages.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein aggregating the product policies comprises aggregating product policies granting the same usage right.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein each product policy further comprises an aggregation priority, wherein the product policies granting the same usage right are aggregated according to the aggregation type and the aggregation priority of the product policies.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the aggregation type is one of sum, maximum, minimum, override, and boolean.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the retrieved licenses are expressed in the international standards organization rights expression language (ISO REL).

7. A method for using a licensing architecture domain to minimize the amount of resources impacted in externally validating a product license corresponding to a software product, the method being implemented on a computer and comprising:

the computer receiving a request to use the software product;

the computer retrieving the product license, the product license being issued to the computer and including external validation data;

the computer retrieving product policies from the product license, each product policy granting a usage right and having an aggregation type that specifies how each product policy should be aggregated with other product policies;

the computer validating the product license according to the external validation data;

the computer aggregating the product policies according to the aggregation type to determine permitted usages in the product license without contacting a licensing authority, said aggregating comprising authenticating the retrieved licenses and only aggregating the product policies when the retrieved licenses are successfully authenticated; and

the computer permitting usage of the software product according to the product license when the product license is successfully validated.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein validating the product license according to the external validation data comprises performing a function indicated by the external validation data on a first value indicated by the external validation data to generate a result, comparing the result with a second value indicated by the external validation data, and validating the product license when the result matches the second value.

10. The medium of claim 7, wherein validating the product license according to the external validation data comprises performing a function indicated by the external validation data on a first value indicated by the external validation data to generate a result, comparing the result with a second value indicated by the external validation data, and validating the product license when the result matches the second value.

9. A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions implementing a method for using a licensing architecture domain to minimize the amount of resources impacted in authorizing a request to use a software product, the method being implemented on a computer executing said computer-executable instructions and comprising:

receiving the request to use the software product;

retrieving a product license associated with the software product the product license being issued to the computer and including external validation data;

retrieving product policies from the product license, each product policy granting a usage right and having an aggregation type that specifies how each product policy should be aggregated with other product policies;

validating the product license according to the external validation data;

aggregating the product policies according to the aggregation type to determine permitted usages in the product license contacting a licensing authority, said aggregating comprising authenticating the retrieved licenses and only aggregating the product policies when the retrieved licenses are successfully authenticated;

permitting usage of the software product according to the product license when the product license is successfully validated.

11. A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions implementing a method for using a licensing architecture domain to minimize the amount of resources impacted in authorizing a request to use a software product, the method being implemented on a computer executing said computer-executable instructions and comprising:

receiving the request to use the software product;

retrieving product policies from one or more licenses, each product policy granting a user right and having an aggregation type that specifies how each product policy should be aggregated with other product policies;

aggregating the product policies according to the aggregation type to determine-permitted usages in the one or more licenses without contacting a licensing authority, said aggregating comprising authenticating the retrieved licenses and only aggregating the product policies when the retrieved licenses are successfully authenticated; and

allowing the requested usage when the requested usage complies with the permitted usage.

12. The medium of claim 11, wherein aggregating the product policies comprises aggregating product policies granting the same usage right.

13. The medium of claim 12, wherein each product policy further comprises an aggregation priority, wherein the product policies granting the same usage right are aggregated according to the aggregation type and aggregation priority of the product policies.

14. The medium of claim 13, wherein the aggregation type is one of sum, maximum, minimum, override, and boolean.

15. The medium of claim 11, wherein the retrieved licenses are expressed in the international standards organization rights expression language.