Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Patent
1998-04-06
1999-12-28
Trammell, James P.
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
705 44, 380 4, 380 25, G06F 1760
Patent
active
06009401&
ABSTRACT:
The present invention, generally speaking, provides a mechanism for use in conjunction with Electronic Software Distribution (ESD) that provides purchase documentation and that allows for convenient re-download and relicensing of soft-ware, including old software versions. In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, a relicensing manager software utility installed on an end user's machine interacts with one or more of a remote publisher site, a license clearing house and a merchant site to relicense, transfer, or obtain a refund for a software product. The term "software product" is used to refer to both executable software programs and to electronic content (e.g, pictures, recordings, etc.) The role of the publisher site is to archive both current and old versions of software products. The role of the license clearinghouse is to keep a count of licensed installations and to grant or deny permission to relicense based on the count. The role of the product server is to effect a credit transaction and, according to the terms of the end-user license, to refund the purchase price of a recently purchased software product for which the customer has requested license revocation. The relicensing manager refers to a license certificate stored on the end user's machine during installation and, preferably, backed-up on floppy disk or some other permanent storage medium. The license certificate describes license policies and server locations which are then followed by the relicensing manager.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5390297 (1995-02-01), Barber et al.
patent: 5553143 (1996-09-01), Ross et al.
patent: 5754763 (1998-05-01), Bereiter
patent: 5790664 (1998-08-01), Coley et al.
Preview Systems, Inc.
Smith Demetra R.
Trammell James P.
LandOfFree
Relicensing of electronically purchased software does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Relicensing of electronically purchased software, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Relicensing of electronically purchased software will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2389557