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US 2003/0149669 A1Published application
Method and system for licensing intellectual property circuits
OwnerMichael C. Howells, Jean-Francois Coteinventors
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Abstract
A method of controlling access to Intellectual Property (IP) -blocks embedded in a circuit comprises decoding a circuit usage rights file associated with the circuit and delineating usage rights associated with the IP blocks, determining from the circuit usage rights file whether access to an IP block to be accessed is permitted; and accessing the IP block only if access is permitted.
Claims27
A method of controlling access to Intellectual Property (IP) blocks embedded in a circuit, comprising:
- decoding a circuit usage rights file associated with said circuit and delineating usage rights associated with said IP blocks;
- determining from said circuit usage rights file whether access to an IP block to be accessed is permitted;
- and
- accessing said IP block only if access thereto is permitted.
1 more element
A system for licensing IP blocks embedded in circuits, comprising:
- an IP block generator for generating an IP block, creating an IP block information file, inserting in said IP block information file, IP block access information and usage rights information associated with said IP block, and encrypting said IP block information file;
- a circuit database generator for creating a database of predetermined files associated with each IP block embedded in said circuit and of any other blocks embedded in said circuit and for creating a circuit usage rights file and encrypting said circuit usage right file for said circuit;
- and
- an application program for accessing said IP blocks, said access program being operable to decrypt a circuit usage rights file associated with said circuit, verify that rights to access said IP block have not expired, determine whether required IP block rights have been licensed for use and access said IP block if required rights have been licensed and have not expired.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.