Licensing media consumption using digital currency

• US 9,082,113 B2
• Filed: 09/15/2009
• Issued: 07/14/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/17/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Gamigo Inc.
• Original Assignee: WildTangent Incorporated (Samarion SE)
• Inventors: Shea, Matthew T., Vanderdasson, Sean W.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nigh, James D
• Application Number:
  US12/560,233
• Publication Number:
  US 20100010915A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,128 Days
• Field of Search: 705/26.1, 705/51, 705/59
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/06 Private payment circuits, e.g. involving electronic currency used among participants of a common payment scheme
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/123 Shopping for digital content
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/1235 with control of digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 2220/10 Usage protection of distributed data files
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 2220/18 Licensing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0207 Discounts or incentives, e.g. coupons or rebates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0222 During e-commerce, i.e. online transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0621 Item configuration or customization
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/00 Information and communication technology [ICT] specially adapted for implementation of business processes of specific business sectors, e.g. utilities or tourism healthcare informatics G16H

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for issuing licenses to allow end users to consume digital media content on a user device by responding to licensing requests by determining the number of digital currency tokens required to license the requested consumption and then issuing the license if the end user'"'"'s account has a sufficient number of digital currency tokens. The end user may further use the digital currency tokens to purchase new features, which are internal and/or external to the digital media content. Other embodiments may be disclosed or claimed.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, by a computing device configured to enable a licensing agent to manage interactions between computing environments on computing devices, an additional feature license request from a user to acquire an update to a license to include an additional feature associated with a licensed digital media content on a user device of a first computing environment of the computing environments, the additional feature including a capability to track features previously acquired for each type of the licensed digital media content, wherein the licensed digital media content was previously licensed with the license, wherein the licensing of a digital media content was facilitated by the licensing agent, using digital currency tokens, the license allowing a user to access the licensed digital media content in at least one game session;

verifying, by the computing device configured to enable the licensing agent of a second computing environment of the computing environments, that the licensed digital media content was previously licensed successfully;

determining, by the computing device configured to enable the licensing agent of a second computing environment of the computing environments, a number of digital currency tokens required to obtain an updated license including the additional feature;

providing, by the computing device configured to enable the licensing agent, the updated license including the additional feature of a third computing environment of the computing environments to the user device in exchange for the determined number of digital currency tokens, the providing including determining that sufficient digital currency tokens including at least one of digital currency tokens the user paid for and digital currency tokens the user otherwise earned are present in a user account associated with the user in a fourth computing environment of the computing environments.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

verifying that the user account has at least the determined number of digital currency tokens; and

the method further comprises debiting the user account by the determined number of digital currency tokens.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the debiting of digital currency tokens comprises not debiting digital currency tokens that the user paid for until all digital currency tokens that the user did not pay for are exhausted, wherein the digital currency tokens include the digital currency tokens the user paid for and the digital currency tokens the user otherwise earned.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising reporting the debiting of digital currency tokens the user did not pay for and those the user did pay for.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the debiting of digital currency tokens comprises not debiting digital currency tokens that the user paid for until all digital currency tokens that the user obtained through an accrual program are exhausted, and not debiting said accrual digital currency tokens until all digital currency tokens obtained from a third party, other than through an accrual program, are exhausted, wherein the digital currency tokens include the digital currency tokens the user paid for and the digital currency tokens the user otherwise earned, and wherein the accrual program providing digital currency tokens to the user by one or more external partners, the partners including at least one of an airline, a hotel chain, and a car rental company.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising reporting the number of digital currency tokens debited that the user paid for, the number that the user obtained through an accrual program, and the number that the user obtained from a third party, as applicable.

7. The method of claim 2 wherein the debiting is accomplished by a digital currency server and the verifying is accomplished by sending a request to the digital currency server.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the verifying comprises the licensing agent sending a request to a digital currency server to determine whether sufficient digital currency tokens are in the user account.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising the user device granting, to the user, access to the additional feature upon verification of the issued license, said license being valid for a period of time selected from:

an indefinite period of time, a definite period of time, a period of time that the user device remains active.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the licensing agent is comprised of a client-side portion residing on the client device and a server-side portion residing on a separate server, the client device and separate server adapted to be communicatively coupled via a wired and/or wireless network, the client-side portion enabled to cache a quantity of digital currency tokens to enable the receiving, verifying, and issuing to be performed without communicating with the server-side portion of the licensing agent.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising requesting, by the client-side portion of the licensing agent, additional digital currency tokens upon determining that the client-side cache has fallen beneath a pre-determined number of digital currency tokens and the client device is currently communicatively coupled to the server-side portion of the licensing agent.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising tracking and reporting, by the client-side portion of the licensing agent, the licensing activities of the client-side portion of the licensing agent.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein providing comprises providing the updated license to the digital media content of a selected one of:

computer game content, interactive media content, video content, audio content, graphical content, and textual content.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein providing comprises enabling the user device to download the additional feature including at least one of a functionality feature, a vanity feature, an enhanced content feature, and an enhanced digital media content management environment.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

before receiving the additional feature license request, selecting and presenting, by the computing device configured to enable the licensing agent, only a plurality of additional features associated with the licensed digital media content to the user device, the plurality of additional features including the additional feature; and

after the user exits the at least one game session provided by the updated license, invalidating, by the computing device configured to enable the licensing agent, the updated license.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein providing comprises providing the enhanced digital media content management environment that enables multiple instances of the licensed digital media content to be launched, and respective states of the multiple instances of the licensed digital media content to be tracked.

17. A media licensing server comprising:

a processor; and

a licensing module, coupled with the processor, to manage interactions between computing environments on computing devices, the licensing module to;

receive a request from a user to acquire an update to a license that updates a user device of the user from a first to a second computing environment of the computing environments, the second computing environment including an additional feature associated with a licensed digital media content on the user device, the additional feature including a capability to track features previously acquired for each type of the licensed digital media content, wherein the licensed digital media content was previously licensed with the license, wherein the licensing of the a digital media content was facilitated by a licensing agent, using digital currency tokens, the license allowing a user to access the licensed digital media content in at least one game session;

verify that the licensed digital media content was licensed successfully;

determine a number of digital currency tokens including digital currency tokens the user paid for or digital currency tokens the user otherwise earned required to license the additional feature;

verify that a user account associated with the user has a sufficient number of digital currency tokens to redeem the license;

issue a digital license to the user device for the additional feature in exchange for the number of digital currency tokens.

18. The media licensing server of claim 17, wherein the licensing module is further adapted to send a request to a digital currency server to determine whether the user account has a sufficient number of digital currency tokens.

19. The media licensing server of claim 17, wherein the licensing module is further adapted to issue the digital license to the user device for the additional feature that comprises at least one of a content-based feature and an environment-based feature.

20. The media licensing server of claim 19, wherein the licensing module is further adapted to issue the digital license to the user device for the additional feature that comprises the at least one content-based feature that comprises at least one of a functionality feature, a vanity feature, and an enhanced content feature.

21. The media licensing server of claim 19, wherein the licensing module is further adapted to issue the digital license to the user device for the additional feature that comprises the at least one environment-based feature comprising at least an enhanced digital media content management environment.

22. A client device comprising:

a processor; and

a digital media licensing module, coupled to the processor, to manage interactions between computing environments on computing devices, the digital media licensing module to;

receive a user request to update a digital media license that updates the client device from a first to a second computing environment of the computing environments, the second computing environment including an additional feature associated with a licensed digital media content, the additional feature including a capability to track features previously acquired for each type of the licensed digital media content, wherein the licensed digital media content was previously licensed with the license, wherein the licensing of the licensed digital media content was facilitated by a licensing agent, using digital currency tokens, the license allowing a user to access the licensed digital media content in at least one game session;

verify that the licensed digital media content was previously licensed with the license successfully;

determine a number of digital currency tokens required to obtain the updated license;

provide the updated license including the additional feature, the provisioning including debiting the number of digital currency tokens required to obtain the updated license from a local cache of digital currency tokens.

23. The client device of claim 22, wherein the digital media licensing module is further to:

cooperate, via a wireless and/or wired network, with a server-side digital media licensing module, to enable a certain number of digital currency tokens to be pre-checked out and stored on the client device to the local cache of digital currency tokens.

24. The client device of claim 22, wherein the digital media licensing module is further to determine whether a current quantity of cached digital currency tokens is smaller than a pre-determined number and to enable more digital currency tokens to be checked out from a digital current server and stored in the local cache of digital currency tokens in response to a determination that the current quantity of cached digital currency tokens is smaller than the predetermined number.