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US 10,769,249 B2Granted
Distributor product programming system
AssigneeSanuwave, Inc.
InventorsCary McGhin, Iulian Cioanta, Christopher Cashman, Clifford Martin
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A product programming system includes a product subject to maintenance, part refurbishment and/or part replacement that has a security device communicatively coupled to a computing device programmed to re-authorize normal operation of the product when a predetermined number of uses has been reached or a predetermined period of time has lapsed.
Claims20
A system for controlling and monitoring service activities of an authorized distributor for a product of a manufacturer comprising:
- a product including a hardware security device that only permits authorized operation of the product for a predetermined number of uses before disabling normal operation of the product and requiring authorization to permit further use when the predetermined number of uses is reached, wherein the predetermined number of uses is based on at least one service activity of an authorized distributor of the product that includes required maintenance, part refurbishment, part replacement, reprocessing and production activity for the product;
- and
- a product programming interface hardware unit having computer-readable storage memory programmed with reset instructions for product service authorization that is communicatively coupled to the hardware security device and to a computing device running an application program having proprietary access to authenticate and authorize the authorized distributor to conduct the at least one service activity through the application program accessing a license file having a predetermined number of distributor service activity transactions supplied by the manufacturer and stored on secure storage media of the product programming interface hardware unit and upon confirmation by the application program that there are one or more distributor service activity transactions remaining permits the distributor as part of providing the at least one service activity to unlock and cause the reset instructions to be provided from the programming interface hardware unit to the hardware security device of the product, wherein said reset instructions add a further number of authorized uses of the product to the security device.
A system for controlling and monitoring service activities of an authorized distributor for a product of a manufacturer comprising:
- a product including a hardware security device that only permits authorized operation of the product for a predetermined number of uses before disabling normal operation of the product and requiring authorization to permit further use when the predetermined number of uses is reached, wherein the predetermined number of uses is based on at least the service activity of an authorized distributor of the product that includes required maintenance, part refurbishment, part replacement, reprocessing and production activity for the product;
- and
- a product programming hardware interface unit having computer-readable storage memory programmed with reset instructions for product service authorization that is communicatively coupled to the hardware security device and to a computing device running an application program having a wide area network connection to a server software application of the manufacturer on a remote server that remotely authenticates and authorizes the authorized distributor to conduct the at least one service activity and permits the authorized distributor through the application program to unlock and cause the reset instructions to be provided from the programming interface hardware unit to the hardware security device of the product, wherein said reset instructions add a further number of authorized uses of the product to the security device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.