Industrial automation control system content protection

One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media, in an industrial automation environment, having program instructions stored thereon to facilitate protection of control system content used in the industrial automation environment, wherein the program instructions, when executed by a computing system, direct the computing system to at least:

• receive, by the one or more processors, the control system content for use in the industrial automation environment, wherein the control system content comprises controller program code that one or more industrial controllers to each drive one or more corresponding machine systems;
• receive, by the one or more processors, content protection instructions for the control system content, wherein the content protection instructions comprise restrictions on execution of the control system content;
• generate, via the one or more processors, an execution license that includes process-related constraints for the control system content based on the content protection instructions, wherein the process-related constraints of the execution license comprise controller limits that restrict a total number of controllers on which the control system content may be run;
• apply the execution license to the control system content to generate protected content, wherein use of the control system content is granted subject to the process-related constraints of the execution license;
• and
• produce a number of products via execution of the protected content by the one or more industrial controllers to drive the one or more corresponding machine systems, wherein a total number of industrial controllers of the one or more industrial controllers executing the control system content is limited by the total number of controllers specified by the process-related constraints.

An apparatus, in an industrial automation environment, to facilitate protection of control system content used in the industrial automation environment, the apparatus comprising:

• one or more computer-readable storage media;
• and
• program instructions stored on the one or more computer-readable storage media that, when executed by a processing system, direct the processing system to at least:
• receive, by the one or more processors, the control system content for use in the industrial automation environment, wherein the control system content comprises controller program code that directs an industrial controller to drive a machine system;
• receive, by the one or more processors, content protection instructions for the control system content, wherein the content protection instructions comprise restrictions on execution of the control system content;
• generate, via the one or more processors, an execution license that includes process-related constraints for the control system content based on the content protection instructions, wherein the process-related constraints of the execution license comprise performance limits that restrict a level of performance at which the control system content can be used to operate the machine system;
• apply the execution license to the control system content to generate protected content;
• and
• produce a number of products via execution of the protected content by the industrial controller to drive the machine system, wherein production of the number of products is restricted to the level of performance specified by the process-related constraints.