Patent ID: 7085742
Filing Date: 2006-08-01
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. An article comprising: a computer-readable signal-bearing medium including a software application; the medium including an associated engraved signature, the engraved signature being initially blank such that the software application is initially used on one of a plurality of computer systems but once used on a computer system is authenticated for that particular computer system; the medium further including an authentication program for authenticating the software application for use on the computer system; during execution of the software application, the authentication program for reading the engraved signature and, if the engraved signature is not blank then the authentication program performing the following: inhibiting execution of the software application if the computed signature does not match the engraved signature; and if the engraved signature is blank, then performing the following: encrypting the identifier using the encryption method to obtain a computed signature; and