Hardware specific product license validation

• US 8,676,714 B2
• Filed: 06/11/2009
• Issued: 03/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/11/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Abzarian, David, Carpenter, Todd L
• Primary Examiner(s): Reagan, James A
• Application Number:
  US12/482,946
• Publication Number:
  US 20100319072A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,741 Days
• Field of Search: 726/28, 705/59
• US Class Current: 705/59
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]

Abstract

Server-side validation of hardware specific software product licenses is described herein.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a request from a computing system for validation of a license of a software product installed thereon, the request being accompanied by a plurality of component descriptors that specify constituent hardware components of the computer system, wherein the component descriptors comprise component class identifiers of the components;

determining whether the license is of a type limited to one or more pre-determined license classes, wherein the pre-determined license classes are defined at least in part by unique component identifiers of the hardware components and component class identifiers of the hardware components; and

if the license is of a type limited to one or more pre-determined license classes, using the component descriptors to verify that the computing system belongs to a type of computing system that is associated with a license class indicated in the license of the software product.

2. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the component descriptors further comprise unique component identifiers of the hardware components.

3. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the component descriptors further comprise system identifiers of the computing system.

4. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising receiving a plurality of system identifiers for a plurality of computing devices from a supplier, the plurality of system identifiers specifying the plurality of computing devices and components of each of the plurality of computing devices.

5. A method as recited in claim 4, further comprising categorizing the plurality of system identifiers into the one or more pre-determined license classes based at least in part upon an identifier of the supplier.

6. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein using further comprises determining if the one or more pre-determined license classes of the computing devices is the same as the one or more pre-determined license classes of the license.

7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein using further comprises applying a weighting scheme to the hardware components of the computing system to verify that the computing system belongs to the one or more pre-determined license classes.

8. The method as recited in claim 7, further comprising altering the weighting scheme dynamically.

9. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the component descriptors are hashed to protect identifiable information of the computing system.

10. One or more computer-readable storage media, storing processor-executable instructions that, when executed on a processor, configure the processor to perform acts for validation of a license of a software product, the acts comprising:

receiving a request from a computing system for validation of a license of a software product installed thereon, the request being accompanied by a plurality of component descriptors that specify constituent hardware components of the computer system, wherein the component descriptors comprise component class identifiers of the hardware components, unique component identifiers of the hardware components, and system identifiers of the computing system;

determining whether the license is of a type limited to one or more pre-determined license classes, wherein the license classes are based at least in part on categorization information of a computing system type, the computing system type defined at least in part by unique component identifiers of the hardware components and the component class identifiers of the hardware components; and

if the license is of a type limited to one or more pre-determined license classes, verifying that the computing system belongs to the one or more pre-determined license classes by using the component descriptors.

11. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 10, further comprising receiving a plurality of system identifiers for a plurality of computing devices from a supplier, the plurality of system identifiers specifying the plurality of computing devices and components of each of the plurality of computing devices.

12. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 11, further comprising categorizing the plurality of system identifiers into the one or more pre-determined license classes based at least in part upon an identifier of the supplier.

13. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 10, wherein verifying further comprises determining if the one or more pre-determined license classes of the computing devices are the same as the one or more pre-determined license classes of the license.

14. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 10, wherein the component descriptors are hashed to protect identifiable information of the computing system.

15. A system for validating a license of a software product comprising:

a memory and a processor;

a communication module, stored in the memory and executable on the processor, that receives a request from a computing system for validation of the license of the software product installed thereon, the request being accompanied by a plurality of component descriptors that specify constituent hardware components of the computer system, wherein the component descriptors comprise component class identifiers of the hardware components, unique component identifiers of the hardware components, and system identifiers of the computing system;

a license categorization module, stored in the memory and executable on the processor, that determines whether the license is of a type limited to one or more pre-determined license classes, wherein the license classes are based at least in part on categorization information of computing system type, the computing system type defined at least in part by unique component identifiers of the hardware components and component class identifiers of the hardware components;

a license validation module, stored in the memory and executable on the processor, that compares the component descriptors accompanying the request with the one or more pre-determined license classes to verify that the computing system belongs to the one or more pre-determined license classes;

a permission granting module, stored in the memory and executable on the processor, that allows the request for validation if the computing system belongs to at least one of the one or more pre-determined license classes.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the communication module is further configured to receive a plurality of system identifiers for a plurality of computing devices from a supplier, the plurality of system identifiers specifying the plurality of computing devices and components of the plurality of computing devices.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the license categorization module is further configured to categorize the plurality of system identifiers into the one or more pre-determined license classes based at least in part upon an identifier of the supplier.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the license validation module is further configured to determine if the one or more pre-determined license classes of the computing devices is the same as the one or more pre-determined license classes of the license.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the component descriptors are hashed to protect identifiable information of the computing system.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein license categorization module is further configured to apply a weighting scheme to the unique component identifiers of the hardware components and the component class identifiers of the hardware components to categorize the computing system into the one or more pre-determined license classes.