System and method for controlling access to licensed computing processes via a codified electronic license
AssigneeNovell, Inc.
InventorsMark D. Ackerman, Stephen R Carter
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system and method controls access to hardware and software functions by employing a codified electronic license that does not generally require application code modification. In response to customer purchases, highly configurable XML licenses containing lists of allowable CLI commands are generated, digitally signed, and transmitted to various customer systems over a network. The customer systems authenticate the licenses, extract the CLI command lists, and register the specified commands with a command processor internal to the customers' systems. Only registered commands are allowed to execute, preventing unlicensed hardware and software from operating on the system.
Claims7
A method for licensing external processes on a server comprising the steps of:
- generating an electronic license, wherein the electronic license is generated by formatting a customer order for a software product in accordance with a licensing schema and the formatted electronic license to include a plurality of software command directives embedded within the formatted electronic license to indicate whether a particular software command directive associated with a particular feature of the software product is to be accepted for registration or rejected for registration, and wherein each software command directive includes a command name associated with a particular software command or operation of the software product and an inclusion or exclusion identifier for indicating the acceptance or rejection of registration for that particular software command or operation within the software product, and wherein at least one software command for the software product is associated with the exclusion identifier;
- and
- registering selective ones of the software commands in response to the software command directives and their inclusion and exclusion identifiers;
- and
- executing the registered commands.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.