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:
Apr. 20, 2010
Filed:
Aug. 08, 2005
Amitava Roy, Lexington, MA (US);
Jeffrey R. Young, Upton, MA (US);
Amitava Roy, Lexington, MA (US);
Jeffrey R. Young, Upton, MA (US);
3Com Corporation, Marlborough, MA (US);
Abstract
A present invention license reallocation system and method facilitates flexible and effective licensing distribution. The license reallocation system and method enables convenient movement of licensed information between hardware devices while ensuring appropriate compliance with license terms. An expired license indication is generated on license expiration. The expired license indication indicates that prior license keys associated with proprietary information are expired. Upon receipt of a valid expired license indication and expired license keys new license key(s) is issued presumably for a different hardware. A license serial number (LSN) that is both globally unique and mutable is utilized to generate license keys. In one embodiment, the license serial number includes system serial number (SSN) and an extension serial number (ESN). The global uniqueness of the SSN ensures that the tuple (SSN, ESN) is globally unique and the mutable but non-repeating nature of the ESN ensures that the tuple is allowed to change without repeating its value.