Method for activating or deactivating at least one hardware and/or software functionality of an automation component

A method for activating or deactivating at least one of a hardware- and a software functionality of an automation component, wherein the automation component contains an input unit and an output unit, comprising:

• generating an identification information of the automation component at the automation component;
• providing the identification information as a first, machine interpretable code on the output unit of the automation component;
• registering the provided first code using a service device via an unidirectional data channel;
• transmitting the identification information from the service device to a server;
• generating a first license information using the server or another unit communicating with the server;
• wherein the first license information identifies supplemental functionalities of the automation component activated upon purchase by a customer, wherein the supplemental functionalities are in addition to basic functionalities;
• transmitting the first license information as an alphanumeric data sequence of predetermined character length from the server to the service device;
• inputting the output first license information into the automation component using the input unit;
• and
• checking the plausibility of the first license information using the automation component;
• and activating at least one of the supplemental functionalities and/or deactivating at least one other of the supplemental functionalities upon successful checking of the plausibility of the first license information.