Patent ID: 7477745

Claim:
A license management apparatus, comprising: a storing portion to store a number of currently available licenses corresponding to each of a plurality of operation functions which may be performed on a plurality of operating function executing units, wherein the plurality of operation functions comprise a first operation function and a second operation function which are different individually licensed hardware functions to be performed on the same operating function executing unit, the number of currently available licenses comprises a plurality of currently available licenses corresponding to the first operation function and a plurality of currently available licenses corresponding to the second operation function, and the number of currently available licenses corresponding to the first operation function is not equal to the number of currently available licenses corresponding to the second operation function; a discriminator to determine, upon a request to use one of the operation functions, whether the number of licenses currently permitted for the use of the requested operation function has reached a predetermined number based on contents of said storing portion, wherein when the requested operation function is an application function, the discriminator determines whether use of a corresponding operation function is permitted, wherein the corresponding operation function is a basic function, and only upon determining that the use of the basic function is permitted, the discriminator determines whether use of the application function is permitted; and a permission determination unit to determine whether the request for the use of the operation function is to be permitted based on a result of said discriminator.