Patent ID: 8793658

Claim:
A method for operating a household appliance that includes a memory containing a control program and at least one appliance program executable by the control program, and a processing unit configured to execute the control program, the method comprising: providing a computer that is communicatively connectable to the household appliance or is part of the household appliance, the computer being communicatively connectable to the Internet and including a computer program configured to exchange data between the household appliance and a database available on the Internet; generating a signature based on at least an identifier identifying the household appliance upon accessing the database for a first time in connection with a logon for access to the database; storing the signature in an area of the database in a data set; transmitting the signature to the computer; selecting at least one appliance program available in the database using the computer under control of the computer program; transmitting the signature present in the computer in connection with the selecting the at least one appliance program; comparing the signature with each signature stored in the area of the database; encoding the selected at least one appliance program with the identifier identifying the household appliance and transmitting the at least one appliance program to the computer if the comparison is successful; and transferring the at least one appliance program into the memory of the household appliance from the computer.