Patent ID: 7085742

Claim:
An article comprising: a computer-readable signal-bearing medium including a software application; the medium including an associated engraved signature, the engraved signature being initially blank such that the software application is initially used on one of a plurality of computer systems but once used on a computer system is authenticated for that particular computer system; the medium further including an authentication program for authenticating the software application for use on the computer system; during execution of the software application, the authentication program for reading the engraved signature and, if the engraved signature is not blank then the authentication program performing the following: retrieving the identifier from the computer system; encrypting the identifier using an encryption method to obtain a computed signature; comparing the computed signature to the engraved signature; and inhibiting execution of the software application if the computed signature does not match the engraved signature; and if the engraved signature is blank, then performing the following: retrieving the identifier from the computer system; encrypting the identifier using the encryption method to obtain a computed signature; and storing the computed signature as the engraved signature thereby generating the engraved signature at the computer system on which the software application is being executed and authenticating the software application only for that computer system.