Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Amazon Technologies, Inc.

Ning Zhang

Wen-Pin Scott Hsu

Tarik Soulami

Brian Stuart Perlman

Ajay Arvind Bhave

Arul Murugan Kumaravel

Mark Zagorski

Shipeng Li

Zheng Chen

Ying-Qing Xu

Tao Mei

Caglar Gunyakti

Jian-Tao Sun

Richard Scott Eizenhoefer

Ashish Kaila

Kazuyoshi Kato

Deeshen Dhirendra Shah

Jeremy Hong-wei Wong

Stefan Thom

Erik Lee Holt

Scott Daniel Anderson

Kristjan Eric Hatlelid

Hakki Tunc Bostanci

Xiaoxi Tan

Egor Nikitin

Jihad Tafas

Thomas J Layson

Mikael P Horal

Shiu-Kai Lee

Vandana Gunupudi

David Maralack

Van Stephen Lanning

Ramprabhu Rathnam

Rajivk Kumar

Josue L Noriega De La Vega

Anil Bazaz

Aditya Dhar

Matt Graves

Eric Timmreck

Mike Weidenbener

Chris McMillan

Shane Patton

A software licensing Application Programming Interface (API) that allows software products to use the license management functionality of a common service. A license specifies rights in a software product. The software product calls a consume method on the API in order to consume a right. If the right exists, the service binds the right to the license in which the right is found. The software product enforces the terms of the license by granting, or denying, access to some or all features depending on whether a valid instance of the right is found. Arbitrary data can be associated with a right. The API includes a method to retrieve data from a right that has been previously bound by the consume method.

Programming interface for licensing

Techniques are described for ensuring data integrity and authentication of received messages. One technique includes sending a request from a first module to a second module in which the request includes a first portion that is a shared secret encrypted with a public key, obtaining by the second module a private key from a secure and trusted information store, such as a license information store, including license information or other application specific information for the first module, using the private key to decrypt the first portion and obtain the shared secret, sending a response from the second module to the first module in which the response includes authentication data and at least one data item used with the shared secret to determine the authentication data, and performing by the first module verification processing to verify the authentication data included in the response.

Techniques for ensuring authentication and integrity of communications

Techniques for providing a cloud mobile device debugging service may be provided. For example, input may be received that is formatted in a particular debugging protocol. The input may be intended for execution on a browser of a mobile device that is remotely hosted with respect to the source of the input. The input may be translated from the particular debugging protocol to a common debugging protocol and provided to the remotely hosted mobile device. A result of executing the translated input with the remotely hosted mobile device may be displayed via a user interface.

Cloud service for mobile testing and debugging

Techniques for providing a cloud mobile device-debugging server may be provided. For example, a request to initiate a communication channel with a mobile device may be received. The communication channel may be initiated based on the request and status information associated with the mobile device. Further, input may be received for interacting with the mobile device where the input corresponds to a particular input protocol. A proxy for translating and executing the received input may be selected based on the particular input protocol. A result of executing the input on the mobile device may be provided for display.

Cross platform mobile HTML debugging

A software license for a particular version of a software product on a computing device includes both a branding identifier that identifies the particular version of the software product and component dependency information that identifies one or more aspects of the particular version of the software product. To activate a software product on the computing device, the branding identifier is compared to a portion of the software product on the computing device. If the branding identifier matches the portion of the software product, then the component dependency information is compared to one or more aspects of the software product on the computing device. If the component dependency information matches the one or more aspects of the software product then the software product is activated. Otherwise, the a license state of the software product is kept unchanged.

Version-based software product activation

A user may perform an image search on an object shown in an image. The user may use a mobile device to display an image. In response to displaying the image, the client device may send the image to a visual search system for image segmentation. Upon receiving a segmented image from the visual search system, the client device may display the segmented image to the user who may select one or more segments including an object of interest to instantiate a search. The visual search system may formulate a search query based on the one or more selected segments and perform a search using the search query. The visual search system may then return search results to the client device for display to the user.

Gesture-based visual search

Systems and methods are provided for activation of software that uses digital licenses. In some embodiments, a software vendor may securely deliver at least one digital proof-of-purchase to an OEM (e.g., to avoid piracy of software licenses). The OEM may install an associated software copy on a computer system, and store the at least one digital proof-of-purchase on it. The OEM may communicate the proof(s)-of-purchase stored on the computer system and its system identifier to the software vendor. A user of the computer system may attempt to activate the OEM pre-installed software by sending an activation request to a software vendor, who may verify whether or not the digital proof-of-purchase and system identifier in the activation request match those previously reported by the OEM, and may either grant or deny the activation request.

Software activation using digital licenses

An instance of an application hierarchy can be stored on a client computer to facilitate enforcement of software licensing by a software license component of a software protection system. The application hierarchy is a tree structure (e.g., unordered) that includes a top node, one or more product offering group(s), and, one or more selling unit(s). A computer-implemented software protection system can facilitate enforcement of software licensing on a client computer. The software protection system includes a software license component that can store and enforce software licensing rule(s). The software license component can further manipulate state data of an instance of the application hierarchy stored in a licensing data store via application program interface(s) (APIs). State data and/or property(ies) of a particular node of the instance of the application hierarchy can be accessed through the API via an assigned identifier.

Application hierarchy and state manipulation

The product keys of software applications that can be utilized to identify, and activate to a higher functional state, legitimate copies of such software applications can be asymmetrically encrypted. Such encrypted product keys can be provided to potential purchasers without fear of theft of the original product keys. The encrypted product keys can be provided to an independent, trusted third-party validation authority that can decrypt such encrypted product keys and can, such as in conjunction with the software application manufacturer, verify the validity of the software applications associated with such product keys. For software applications bundled on a computing device, a tool can be executed by either the seller or potential purchaser to collect and display encrypted product keys for verification purposes. For software applications sold in an online environment, an escrow service can be utilized to keep, and provide when requested, product keys of software applications offered for sale.

User-administered license state verification

A Trusted Activation License (TAL) can be comprised of a key unique to a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) and identifying information of the software applications bundled with the computing device having that TPM. To activate the software applications, the identifying information in the TAL can be compared against that of the software applications being activated, and the unique TPM key in the TAL can be compared against that of the TPM on the computing device on which the activation is taking place. Subsequent validations can be based on a protected association between the TAL and an Attestation Identity Key (AIK) that can be generated by the TPM as part of the activation step. Optionally, Platform Configuration Registers (PCRs) of the TPM can be periodically changed during validation to protect against useage of one TPM for validations on multiple computing devices.

TPM-based license activation and validation

Applications or operating system components requiring a SKU, or other indicator of an operating system, make a call to an API. The calling application passes an indicator of the most current version of an operating system known at the time of the application creation as an argument. This argument may be an indictor of the operating system version, build number, and service pack version, for example. The called API may reference a table of operating system SKUs with the indicator of the most current operating system known to the calling application. If found, the API returns the corresponding SKU to the calling application. If not found, the API returns the SKU corresponding to the closest sequential match to the passed in indicator. The calling application may then execute believing it is using the operating system corresponding to the returned SKU.

SKU determination mechanism and API

A plurality of digital licenses correspond to a piece of content, including a base license and at least one add-on license. Each add-on license includes a reference to the base license, and each of the base license and each add-on license sets forth rules specifying how the content may be employed. Each add-on license is identified by way of the reference therein to the base license, and the rules in the base license and in each identified add-on license are aggregated into an aggregated set of rules that is evaluated to determine if such aggregated set of rules allows employing the content in a particular manner.

Digital application operating according to aggregation of plurality of licenses

A publishing interface is provided for a user to publish content to a content management server (CMS). The content is authored on a work station by way of an authoring application operating thereon and includes a main body and at least one linked object. Each linked object is linked to the main body by a local pointer therein. The CMS is for effectuating a web site including the published content. The publishing interface has a client-side component working with the application and a server-side component working with the CMS. The client-side component resolves each local pointer to a linked object in the main body, converts the main body into a pre-determined format as determined by the selected task, and forwards the converted main body and each linked object thereof to the server-side component. The server-side component stores the converted main body and the linked objects in the CMS.

Publishing interface for publishing content from a content-authoring application to a content server

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Bothell, WA, United States of America

Ning Zhang