Patent ID: 7890430

Claim:
A method for online software license enforcement comprising: a license server device performing steps of: storing: a master copy of a software product; at least one download copy of the master copy; and a software license for the software product, said software license comprising identification of a subject and a license policy defining a role for distribution of the software product to said subject; wherein the role defines distribution privileges granted to the subject in a separately obtained verification of the subject's authorization to perform operations associated with distribution of the software product; receiving a request from the subject for confirmation of the license in order to run the at least one download copy, wherein said request is made upon an attempt by the subject to run said at least one download copy; individualizing the download copy by fingerprinting said download copy of the software product with a watermark to link said download copy to the subject downloading it; linking the individualized download copy of the software product to its respective software license; evaluating the software license linked to the individualized download copy to determine its associated role; requesting from a third party trust center a verification that the role associated with the license matches a current status of the subject for restricting operations available to said subject to only those operations that are defined by its role; and transmitting approval to the individualized download copy only upon receipt of the verification from the third party trust center, wherein said approval constitutes a runtime ticket necessary to obtain a fully usable runtime version of the individualized download copy.