Patent ID: 7574406

Claim:
A system for maximizing the utilization of a plurality of licenses in the context of video distribution to a plurality of plurality of subscribers, said system comprising: means for computing a plurality of surplus licenses; means for distributing said plurality of surplus licenses among said plurality of plurality of subscribers; means for selling said plurality of surplus licenses; and means for responding to a buying bid based on said plurality of surplus licenses, wherein said means for computing said plurality of surplus licenses comprises: processing on-demand license requests; determining available licenses (La); determining number of logged in subscribers (S) of said plurality of plurality of subscribers; determining multiplicity factor (M) associated with said plurality of plurality of licenses; computing required licenses (Lr), wherein said computing is based on the product S*M*T wherein T is a pre-defined threshold; checking Lr with available licenses (La); ordering La with respect to S in decreasing order; and computing said plurality of surplus licenses (Ls) as top La−Lr licenses if La>Lr.