Patent ID: 7779274

Claim:
A computing device for enabling enforcement of software licensing terms for a software product for use with the computing device, the computing device comprising: one or more components, each component having a component identity obtainable from the computing device and identifying the component and a component type from among a set of component types; at least one storage area for program code and data; and a processor for executing the program code, wherein the program code directs the computing device to perform the functions comprising: retrieving license data corresponding to the licensing terms; for each component type from among said set of component types, obtaining an associated current component identity of a corresponding component from said computer system; for each component type from among said set of component types, comparing said obtained associated current component identity to an associated stored component identity from the retrieved license data; calculating a matching score by, for each component type from among said set of component types, if the result of said comparison is positive as a match, by incrementing the matching score by adding a stored associated component type weight corresponding to each component type from among said set of component types from the retrieved license data to said matching score; comparing said matching score to a threshold matching score from the retrieved license data, and honoring a right granted by the licensing terms with respect to the software product if the matching score exceeds the threshold matching score.