Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Pratul Dublish

Caglar Gunyakti

Sean O Lyndersay

Clifford Paul Strom

Aidan T Hughes

Charlie David Chase, Jr

Bassam Tabbara

Praerit Garg

Geoffrey Hugh Outhred

Jeffrey Bruce Parham

Brian D Crites

Krishnamurthy Ganesan

Sandeep S Sahasrabudhe

Kevin D J Grealish

Cory West

Timothy S McGrath

Daniel Adent

Sean A Emam

To install a black box on a computing device, an administrator has access to the computing device and queries same for machine properties thereof. The administrator sends the machine properties of the computing device to a black box server as part of a request for a new black box for the computing device. The black box server in response constructs the new black box based in part on the machine properties so as to tie the new black box to the computing device, and delivers the new black box to the administrator. The administrator thereafter installs the new black box on the computing device. The administrator may include an activation provider running on the computing device and an activation manager in communication with the activation provider. The administrator may also deactivate the black box if it determines that the black box is no longer trustworthy.

Installation of black box for trusted component for digital rights management (DRM) on computing device

The present invention provides a method and system for location-based digital rights management. Digital rights for protected content are restricted to a specific location or region by specifying the approved location of the consuming device within the license. This allows the content owner to specify the geographic locations/regions at which the protected content may be consumed. The device obtains its location from a location entity which is then evaluated against the location constraint within the license. If the device is within the location constraint then the content may be accessed. Acquiring the location of the device before allowing access to certain content helps in preventing a user from accessing a protected document in an area which is considered a prohibited location as defined within the license.

Location based licensing

Modeling operational policies of operating a business's or institution's actual or planned IT system. The IT system may include components such as applications, application hosts, one or more networks or components thereof, hardware, and interrelationships between the components. The IT system is to be operated in accordance with operational policies that govern existence or numerosity of components, how the components are interrelated, how the components and interrelationships are configured, and/or manual or automated processes for managing and maintaining the IT system. The modeling may involve generating code that conforms to a language by declaring abstractions using types that correspond to the components of the IT system, by declaring types of interrelationships that correspond to the interrelationships of the IT system, and by defining constraints upon and between the abstract types, where the constraints correspond to operational policies of operating the IT system.

Modeling IT operations/policies

Systems and methods for implementing a hardware ID with time- and weight-based flexibility use a hardware ID (HWID) including identifying information about hardware components. When software is run, a current HWID is generated. When the current HWID is compared to a stored HWID to determine if the two HWIDs match, a time vector and a weight vector are used in the comparison. A running matching score is kept of matches. For each hardware component, the weight vector indicates the weight given to a correct match of the hashed value for the hardware component. For example, if the weight value for the hardware component is three and there is a match, then the running total is increased by three. For each hardware component, the time vector may indicate an expiration period after which a change in the component may be allowed. For example, if the expiration period for the component is one year, and one year has passed since activation, the running total may be increased even though the component's information in the verification HWID does not match the current component information.

Systems and methods for providing time-and weight-based flexibility tolerant hardware ID

A system and method for securely delivering the location information of a mobile device to a location consumer is presented. In operation, the mobile device user issues a license to a location consumer. The license identifies the location consumer and any conditions the mobile device user places on the license. The license is encrypted such that it cannot be modified without invalidating the license. The license is submitted in a location request by the location consumer. A location information server receives the request, validates that the license was issued to the location consumer and that the location request conforms to the conditions of the license. If so, the location information server obtains the mobile device's location information, generates a location response, encrypts some of the location response, and returns the location response to the location consumer.

System and method for enforcing location privacy using rights management

A header object for a data file is comprised of sub-objects which specify properties of the data stream and contains information needed to properly verify and interpret the information within the data object. In order to allow the protection of any set of sub-objects without requiring that the sub-objects follow any specific ordering, a new sub-object is introduced which includes region specifiers identifying regions within sub-objects and verification information for those regions. This new sub-object in the header object allows the modification of non-protected regions and reorganization of sub-objects in a header without invalidating verification information.

Advanced stream format (ASF) data stream header object protection

Systems and methods for providing time-and weight-based flexibly tolerant hardware ID

A packager packages digital content for a user and a licensor issues a digital license to the user for the content such that the user renders the content only in accordance with the license. The licensor and packager share a Secret to allow the packager and the licensor to calculate a content key (KD) for the content. To package the content for the user, the packager calculates a content key (KD) based on the shared Secret and a content ID and encrypts the content according to (KD). To issue a license to the user for the content, the licensor also calculates (KD) based on the shared Secret and the content ID, encrypts (KD) according to a public key of the user to form the license, and sends the license to the user.

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Sammamish, WA, United States of America

Pratul Dublish