Patent ID: 8732841

Claim:
A computer software license server including a processor and memory, comprising: a communication module containing program code stored in memory which when executed by the processor in the server causes the server to perform the operations of utilizing pre-existing communication infrastructure to provide a communication link between the license server and a remote computer, the communication module receiving a software license key and a current Internet Protocol (IP) address of the remote computer; a geographic location cross reference to IP address database stored within the server memory; a license database stored within the server memory having a plurality of license policies, each license policy being uniquely identified by a corresponding software license key, at least one license policy specifying a use limitation for a software application within a geographic boundary; and a license validation mechanism comprising program code which when executed by the processor in the server causes the server to perform the operations of sending a valid license confirmation signal to the remote computer via the communication link, in response to: (i) identifying a current geographic location for the received current IP address by performing a reverse IP address lookup in the geographic location database, (ii) retrieving a specific license policy having a geographic boundary use limitation from the license database based on the received software license key, and (iii) determining that the current geographic location is within the specific geographic boundary identified by the retrieved license policy.