Patent ID: 8069119

Claim:
A program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for software license management and issuance, said method steps comprising: making an external request from a client server; selecting a client, a request for a local license, and customer registration to a license server; determining if the license has been tampered with; determining if the license has not expired; returning an error message if tampering or expiration is determined, otherwise continuing with the following method steps: initiating a request from a server side from either a request from the local license and customer registration or from an electronically transmitted file to a customer service representative; determining a request type and processing the license request to determine if a customer is registered; if the customer is not registered, a certificate and customer's public key is issued and sent to the client, if the customer is registered, the analysis of the license continues; determining if server will handle the product of the license request, and if so, the server will continue the analysis, but if not, the server will return a response indicating such to the client; if the server does handle the product and the customer is registered, the system places a call to the end user business rules script and determines if the request has been rejected; and if the request has been rejected a message will be sent to the client, and if not a determination on whether a license can be issued and the answer returned to the client.