Patent ID: 8126814

Claim:
A method, comprising: sending a request for a service feature license from an electronic device to a license distributor, wherein said request includes an official node identifier that uniquely identifies the electronic device and an official sequence number of the electronic device that is utilized to prevent multiple installations of the requested service feature license by the electronic device; receiving an authorization key from the license distributor in response to the request, wherein the authorization key includes the service feature license associated with the request, a node identifier that identifies which device is allowed to install the license, and a sequence number; comparing said node identifier in said authorization key to said official node identifier stored by said electronic device; comparing said sequence number in said authorization key to said official sequence number sent to the license distributor in the request and that is also maintained at said electronic device; installing said service feature license in a pool of licenses on said electronic device when said node identifier matches said official node identifier and said sequence number matches said official sequence number; and preventing the installation of more than one copy of said service feature license on said electronic device by incrementing said official sequence number, after installation of said license, so that said authorization key cannot be used to install the service feature license again on said electronic device.