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US 2011/0087496 A1Published application
Method and apparatus for selling a software product
OwnerDaniel Doll-Steinberginventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and system for selling a software product, and for preventing theft at the point of purchase, includes: manufacturing the software product at a sales outlet; generating a unique unlock code for the product, without which the product will not operate; displaying the product for sale at the sales outlet, while storing the unlock code separately from the product; and, on purchase of the product by a customer, supplying the customer with both the product and the unlock code. Since the unlock code is not printed onto the packaging, nor is it burned to the CD or other machine-readable media, the product can safely be left out for display and purchase in store without substantial risk of theft.
Claims19
A method of manufacturing and selling a software product both locally at a sales outlet for a customer, comprising:
- providing at the sales outlet a manufacturing control unit connected to a product manufacturing apparatus, a printer and a storage device;
- using the product manufacturing apparatus under the control of the manufacturing control unit at the sales outlet to write a software title to a machine-readable medium to manufacture an individual software product comprising the machine-readable medium with the software title, and when manufacturing the individual software product the manufacturing control unit:
- generates and stores on the machine-readable medium a unique identifier for the individual software product,
- prints the unique identifier using the printer on packaging for the software product,
- generates for each individual software product manufactured an associated unique unlock code without which the individual software product will not operate, and
- stores on the storage device, with the unique identifier for the individual software product, the associated unique unlock code;
- associating the software product with the packaging having the unique identifier printed thereon;
- leaving out for sale at the sales outlet the software product in the packaging;
- and
- upon purchase of the software product at the sales outlet by the customer,
- recovering from the storage device the associated unique unlock code for the individual software product by using the unique identifier printed on the packaging, and
- supplying the customer with both the software product and the associated unique unlock code.
9 more elements
A method of manufacturing and selling a software product both locally at a sales outlet visited by a customer, comprising:
- providing at the sales outlet a manufacturing control unit connected to a product manufacturing apparatus, a printer, and a storage device containing data corresponding to a software title to be written to a machine-readable medium;
- using the product manufacturing apparatus under the control of the manufacturing control unit at the sales outlet to write the software title to the machine-readable medium to manufacture an individual software product comprising the machine-readable medium with the software title, and when manufacturing the individual software product the manufacturing control unit:
- generates and stores on the machine-readable medium a unique identifier for the individual software product,
- prints the unique identifier using the printer on packaging for the software product,
- generates for each individual software product manufactured an associated unique unlock code without which the individual software product will not operate, and
- stores on the storage device, with the unique identifier for the individual software product, the associated unique unlock code;
- associating the software product with the packaging having the unique identifier printed thereon;
- leaving out for sale at the sales outlet the software product in the packaging;
- and
- upon purchase of the software product at the sales outlet by the customer,
- recovering from the storage device the associated unlock code for the individual software product by using the unique identifier printed on the packaging,
- printing out the corresponding unlock code recovered from the storage device at the sales outlet, and
- supplying the customer with both the software product and the print out of the associated unique unlock code at the sales outlet.
10 more elements
A system for manufacturing and selling a software product to a customer, comprising a sales outlet which is visited by the customer, said sales outlet having:
- a product manufacturing apparatus;
- a printer;
- a storage device containing data corresponding to a software title to be written to a machine-readable medium;
- a manufacturing control unit connected to the a product manufacturing apparatus, the printer, and the storage device, in which the product manufacturing apparatus under the control of the manufacturing control unit writes the software title to the machine-readable medium to manufacture a software product comprising the machine-readable medium with the software title, and the manufacturing control unit:
- generates and stores on the machine-readable medium a unique identifier for the software product,
- prints the unique identifier using the printer on packaging for the software product,
- generates for each individual software product manufactured an associated unique unlock code without which the individual software product will not operate, and
- stores on the storage device, with the unique identifier for the individual software product, the associated unique unlock code;
- means for recovering from the storage device the corresponding unlock code which uses the unique identifier printed on packaging;
- and
- means for printing out the corresponding unlock code recovered from the storage device such that on purchase of the software product the customer is supplied with both the software product and the print out of the corresponding unlock code at the sales outlet.
8 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.