SOFTWARE UPGRADES USING TOKENS AND EXISTING LICENSES

摘要

An upgrade to a computer program is associated with a token which is in turn associated with the original key for the computer program. In particular, given the original key, a publisher provides a token for the upgrade which is digitally signed and associated with the original key. The token also can result in a license state for the upgrade that is different from the license state for the original computer program. The original key can be used in various business rules by the publisher to determine whether to issue the token and/or what license state should be associated with the token. When the upgrade is run on the computer, the verification process authenticates the token, the original license and the original key and authorizes execution of the upgrade based on the token for upgrade. Multiple upgrades can use multiple tokens and the original key.