Entitlement File Embedding for Software Piracy Protection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing anti-piracy techniques for software often burden legal users with additional steps and costs, reduce software performance, and fail to effectively communicate and enforce entitlement agreements, leading to increased production costs and support requests, as well as ineffective identity and access management.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a tamper-evident entitlement file system that establishes entitled use of software through pre-deployment registration, encoding, and digital signatures, ensuring compliance and security by embedding client identity and licensing information within the software package, allowing for secure installation and verification.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If existing anti-piracy approaches are implemented, then software piracy protection is improved, but additional hardware requirements and installation steps increase device complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the piracy protection mechanism from traditional hardware-based approaches and relocates it to the software installation media itself. The entitlement file is embedded directly in the installation product, eliminating the need for separate hardware security modules or external license servers. This extraction reduces device complexity while maintaining protection reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The installation product performs self-verification of entitlement through the embedded entitlement file. The software package contains its own licensing information and can verify its own legitimacy without requiring external hardware components or network connections to license servers. This self-service approach eliminates additional hardware requirements and simplifies the installation process.
2Reliability
If existing anti-piracy approaches are implemented, then software piracy protection is improved, but software performance and availability are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The entitlement verification is performed preliminarily during the installation phase rather than during runtime operation. The entitlement file is validated and bound to the installation product before the software is deployed. This preliminary action ensures protection is established upfront without requiring ongoing performance overhead or network connections that would reduce software availability during use.
3Reliability
If existing anti-piracy approaches are implemented, then software piracy protection is improved, but production costs and support requests increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the licensing information, entitlement data, and software installation files into a single integrated installation product. The entitlement file is embedded within the installation media itself, combining multiple previously separate components (software, license files, activation mechanisms) into one unified package. This merging eliminates the need for separate license server infrastructure, reduces production costs by removing redundant components, and decreases support requests by simplifying the overall system architecture.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques for establishing entitlement to a computer program product are provided, and include providing a client identity in a registration process to produce an entitlement file, obtaining an encoded version of a computer program product, and transforming the computer program product into an installation product in a computer storage medium, wherein the installation product comprises the entitlement file to establish entitled use of the computer program product. Also, techniques for facilitating security compliance of a computer program product include providing an encoded version of a computer program product, and providing an installation product builder for the computer program product, wherein the installation product builder creates an installation product in a computer storage medium using a client identity and the encoded version of the computer program product during a registration process, and wherein the created installation product comprises an entitlement file to facilitate security compliance of the computer program product.