The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 27, 2002
Filed:
Jun. 22, 1999
Ronald R. Martinsen, Issaquah, WA (US);
Jeffrey Alger, Redmond, WA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
A dynamic SKU manager creates versions of programs with different feature sets without a recompilation of the products. Features are enabled either before shipping to a user, or after the user has a partially enabled product. A brand module creates an encrypted value for each version which is unique to the machine on which the program is installed. The encrypted value contains an identifier, a date, and a machine unique name. A query component is called by various components of the program to obtain information about features and capabilities of a currently installed program. It also keeps track of which SKUs are available, and need not be recompiled if no changes have been made to the available SKUs on the machine. The query component is dynamically loaded and unloaded each time it is needed.