Application hierarchy and state manipulation

• US 8,538,889 B2
• Filed: 06/25/2008
• Issued: 09/17/2013
• 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, Zagorski, Mark Walter, Soulami, Tarik, Perlman, Brian S., Zhang, Ning
• Primary Examiner(s): CHEUNG, CALVIN K
• Application Number:
  US12/145,506
• Publication Number:
  US 20090327090A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,910 Days
• Field of Search: 705 50- 59
• US Class Current: 705/59
• 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 computer comprising a processing unit coupled to a memory, the computer comprising;

a license data store that stores an instance of an application hierarchy, wherein the instance of the application hierarchy stores state data and a property for a plurality of nodes, wherein the state data is associated with a rearm count that indicates a quantity of remaining rearms, wherein the property is associated with a genuine marker associated with an associated node; and

,

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

wherein the software license component stores a software licensing rule for manipulating the state data of the instance of the application hierarchy, the software licensing rule provides for propagation of a non-genuine property from a first node to another node upon determination of an application associated with the first node being non-genuine,

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, the application interface providing information regarding the property of a particular node to a web-based validation component.

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 licensing rule further provides for manipulation of state data of the application hierarchy recursively in a top-down manner.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the state data and a property of a particular node can be accessed through the application program interface via an assigned identifier.

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

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the product offering group comprises at least one selling unit.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the instance of the application hierarchy comprises a plurality of product offering groups, each product offering group having at least one selling unit.

8. The system of claim 7, 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.

9. The system of claim 1, 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.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the first node and the another node are of a same product group.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the application hierarchy is a tree structure that represents a logical product offering of software applications.