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:
Jul. 01, 2008
Filed:
Dec. 13, 2000
Kazuo Watanabe, Tokyo, JP;
Kazuo Watanabe, Tokyo, JP;
Sony Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A method of managing software use in a desired mode and with ease of handling upgrades or other changes includes a sales company or other software provider adding a password to software, inserting identification information into a dongle, and distributing the same to users. A secret key and an open key are prepared and the open key is transmitted to the user. When the user tries to obtain a license, the password is sent to the sales company. The sales company detects identification information based on the password, encodes the same by using the secret key, and sends the same to the user as encoded license information. The user decodes the encoded license information by the open key and matches the same against the identification information included in the dongle. If the information match, the software effectively starts up, while if not, the execution of the software is stopped.