Patent ID: 8589265

Claim:
A method for incurring varying token costs for activating software tools depending upon enabled feature-sets comprising: at least one of one or more computing devices receiving a request to activate a software tool, where activation requires a quantity of tokens of a token license model; at least one of the one or more computing devices ascertaining an entity, project, user-set, user, or combination thereof corresponding to the request; at least one of the one or more computing devices determining by querying preexisting indexed records, a feature-set to enable for the software tool for the request, wherein said preexisting indexed records associate different feature-sets to different entities, projects, user-sets, users, or combinations thereof; at least one of the one or more computing devices computing a token cost for activating the software tool with the feature-set enabled for the request, wherein the token cost for utilizing the software tool varies depending upon the enabled feature-set, wherein said computed token cost is the quantity of tokens required to activate the software tool responsive to the request; at least one of the one or more computing devices, purchasing a quantity of tokens for a token pool, wherein at a time of the purchasing, the preexisting indexed records are not configured for a purchaser or for any users having access to the token pool; at least one of the one or more computing devices, a significant time, which is greater than one day, after purchasing the quantity of tokens, changing content of the preexisting indexed records so that changed indexed records comprise data of the preexisting indexed records; at least one of the one or more computing devices, after the changing of content, receiving the request; at least one of the one or more computing devices examining an available quantity of tokens in the token pool; at least one of the one or more computing devices, when the available quantity of tokens in the token pool exceeds or is equal to the computed token cost, removing the computed cost of tokens from the token pool; at least one of the one or more computing devices conveying the removed tokens to a computing device executing the software tool of the request; and at least one of the one or more computing devices activating the software tool utilizing the conveyed tokens.