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. 15, 2006
Filed:
Feb. 05, 2001
Dimitri Kanevsky, Ossining, NY (US);
Clifford A. Pickover, Yorktown Heights, NY (US);
Mariusz Sabath, Scarsdale, NY (US);
Alexander Zlatsin, Yorktown Heights, NY (US);
Dimitri Kanevsky, Ossining, NY (US);
Clifford A. Pickover, Yorktown Heights, NY (US);
Mariusz Sabath, Scarsdale, NY (US);
Alexander Zlatsin, Yorktown Heights, NY (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
Methods and system to progressively degrade a trial version of software products in various ways so as to permit the user to continue to use the product until the user becomes reliant on the product and becomes so frustrated that the user purchases the product. This approach, it may be noted, is also useful for discouraging illegal use of software without proper licenses. The trial or demonstration version of the software program may degrade in any one or more of a number of ways. For instance, the brightness may fade, the application window may shrink, the font may degrade, features may drop out, the display quality may degrade, the sound quality may diminish, the processing speed may decrease, or the network bandwidth may decrease.