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Distributed run-time licensing

  • US 7,536,356 B2
  • Filed: 10/26/2004
  • Issued: 05/19/2009
  • Est. Priority Date: 05/11/2001
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. A machine-implemented method for managing software licenses in a computer network having a maximum number of said licenses for use with a licensed software program, comprising the steps of:

  • counting numbers of said licensed software program in use at a plurality of nodes of said computer network to obtain counts of software licenses in use by each node;

    performing a sanity scan on at least one subset of said plurality of nodes;

    generating a scan result message;

    transmitting said counts to a master node of said computer network;

    said transmitting step transmits said scan result message with at least one of said counts;

    calculating a total number of software users on said computer network, said calculating step uses said counts;

    evaluating license allocation conditions using said total number of users;

    wherein the license allocation conditions include an error threshold that results in a lockout initiation and a warning threshold that results in a warning message;

    wherein the error threshold and warning threshold are values related to the maximum number of licenses;

    wherein the error threshold is greater than the warning threshold; and

    sending the warning message, using at least one processor, when the warning threshold is exceeded, and thereafterinitiating a lockout when the error threshold is exceeded;

    checking whether one of said scan result messages has been received from all of said nodes; and

    deallocating any licenses allocated to users of any of said nodes from which a scan result message has not been received.

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