The present invention relates to distribution of consumer products in the embedded systems market.
The electronics industry has become increasingly driven to meet the demands of high-volume consumer applications, which comprise a majority of the embedded systems market. Embedded systems face challenges in producing performance with minimal delay, minimal power consumption, and at minimal cost. As the numbers and types of consumer applications where embedded systems are employed increases, these challenges become even more pressing. Examples of consumer applications where embedded systems are employed include handheld devices, such as cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), global positioning system (GPS) receivers, digital cameras, etc. By their nature, these devices are required to be small, low-power, light-weight, and feature-rich.
As consumer products, these devices also must remain easily attainable and cost competitive. Associated with making devices readily attainable is a need for an efficient, secure, and convenient distribution scheme that maintains protection of proprietary rights for the product manufacturers through proper licensing control without sacrificing financial gain. The present invention addresses such needs.
Aspects for consumer product distribution in the embedded system market are described. The aspects include forming a secure network for distributing product digitation files capable of configuring operations of an adaptive computing engine (ACE), and providing an agent server within the secure network for controlling licenses of the product digitation files, wherein a separation of responsibility and control of the distributing and licensing exists.
Through the present invention, a distribution process is achieved that provides a safe, reliable, and efficient approach to ensuring successful and convenient consumer product access. Further, the nature of the distribution allows for multiple opportunities for continued revenue generation. These and other advantages will become readily apparent from the following detailed description and accompanying drawings.
a and 1b illustrate a preferred embodiment of providing a consumer product in accordance with the present invention.
The present invention relates to distribution of consumer products in the embedded system market. The following description is presented to enable one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention and is provided in the context of a patent application and its requirements. Various modifications to the preferred embodiment and the generic principles and features described herein will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art. Thus, the present invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiment shown but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and features described herein.
The present invention is described for particular applicability to an environment in which an electronic product is provided as two separate consumer items, an adaptive silicon foundation and a digitation file. The adaptive silicon foundation allows for a blank slate onto which a desired hardware designation and software application are applied via the digitation file. Thus, the distinction between software and hardware becomes negligible, as the adaptive silicon remains seemingly useless until the application of the digitation file to the adaptive silicon commences. The present invention relates to the aspects of distribution of the digitation file in a manner that allows for the separation of the responsibility of distribution and licensing and of authentication and encryption, while ensuring product security and integrity with proper revenue generation and notification when providing a consumer product.
a and 1b illustrate providing a consumer product in accordance with the present invention. Referring concurrently to
By the nature of the digitation file providing the hardware designation and software application for the adaptive silicon, the value of the actual silicon performing the operations of the product is relative to the value of the digitation file. This represents a shift from the typical paradigm of consumer products, where the silicon hardware often is designed to perform the particular function of the device, as in an ASIC approach, and thus, the silicon hardware bears the value and the costs associated with the device. In contrast, with the present invention, the cost of the silicon becomes of much less significance, while the digitation file bears more of the value and the costs associated with the device.
In a preferred embodiment, the adaptive silicon is provided as an adaptive computing engine (ACE). A more detailed discussion of the aspects of an ACE are provided in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/815,122 entitled “Adaptive Integrated Circuitry with Heterogeneous and Reconfigurable Matrices of Diverse and Adaptive Computational Units Having Fixed, Application Specific Computational Elements,” filed Mar. 22, 2001, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. Portions of that discussion are presented in the following in order to more full illustrate the aspects of the present invention.
Continuing to refer to
In a preferred embodiment, the various computational elements 250 are designed and grouped together, into the various reconfigurable computation units 200. In addition to computational elements 250 which are designed to execute a particular algorithm or function, such as multiplication, other types of computational elements 250 are also utilized in the preferred embodiment. As illustrated in
With the various types of different computational elements 250, which may be available, depending upon the desired functionality of the ACE 106, the computation units 200 may be loosely categorized. A first category of computation units 200 includes computational elements 250 performing linear operations, such as multiplication, addition, finite impulse response filtering, and so on. A second category of computation units 200 includes computational elements 250 performing non-linear operations, such as discrete cosine transformation, trigonometric calculations, and complex multiplications. A third type of computation unit 200 implements a finite state machine, such as computation unit 200C as illustrated in
Next, a digitation file represents a tight coupling (or interdigitation) of data and configuration (or other control) information, within one, effectively continuous stream of information. As illustrated in the diagram of
This use of silverware modules, as a commingling of data and configuration information, in conjunction with the real-time reconfigurability of heterogeneous and fixed computational elements 250 to form different and heterogeneous computation units 200 and matrices 150, enables the ACE 100 architecture to have multiple and different modes of operation. For example, when included within a hand-held device, given a corresponding silverware module, the ACE 100 may have various and different operating modes as a cellular or other mobile telephone, a music player, a pager, a personal digital assistant, and other new or existing functionalities. In addition, these operating modes may change based upon the physical location of the device; for example, when configured as a CDMA mobile telephone for use in the United States, the ACE 100 may be reconfigured as a GSM mobile telephone for use in Europe.
In accordance with the present invention, a network is achieved that allows for the distribution of the silverware in a manner that ensures security and integrity of the data transfer. Through the security provided, only the licensed and authorized classes of applications are loaded and executed on the ACE with validation that only the anticipated suppliers and consumers are exchanging applications and revenues/sales are collected as appropriate for each download. Further, the monitoring for proper security allows for notifications of abuse. In an preferred embodiment, security and permissions are validated for application downloads of one-time connected, one-way connected and bi-directionally connected devices independent of the frequency, medium (e.g. wired or wireless) and network connectivity to the Internet.
Referring to
Referring now to
At some point, silverware is selected for loading onto the device (step 1128). When the silverware actually loads on the device 100, a security manager of the device 100 verifies the signature against the certificate issued by the agent server 1106 (step 1130). The device 100 further connects to the license server 1104 through a secure protocol to request a license (step 1132), sending the ID of the silverware and its own ID. The license server 1104 then returns a license (step 1134), which indicates under what conditions the silverware can run.
For purposes of this disclosure, the agent server 1106 utilizes secure server tools to perform a number of services during the distribution process, including verification services, signing services, encryption services, distribution services, and clearinghouse services. The verification services are provided to verify the silverware modules by running a series of tests that ensure that the silverware module meets a limited set of tests to help ensure the safe and reliable operation of silverware on the devices. The signing services are used for the signing of silverware modules. Preferably, the signing services generate a unique ID and signs a silverware module to protect it from tampering. The verified, signed silverware module is then passed back to the developer for encryption to protect other proprietary information if required. Once signed, any changes, tampering, or attacks to the module can be quickly detected. Modules which are not signed, or are signed incorrectly to indicate tampering will not load. The encryption services are used for the encryption of silverware modules. Encryption of silverware modules ensures the protection of proprietary information both in the silverware, as well as protecting the methods and architecture of the ACE itself. Further, as their names indicate, the distribution service is used for the distribution of silverware modules and applications and the clearinghouse service is used to manage clearinghouse functions.
Separate tools are provided to perform the billing service and to perform the license service. The license service tool is designed to issue and authorize licenses to silverware modules to allow them to run on one or more devices. The billing system service handles revenue notification. This tool receives revenue events from ACE-enabled devices and other notification systems and generates appropriate revenue event notification.
There are a number of revenue events during distribution in accordance with an aspect of the present invention. By the nature of the silverware providing the hardware designation and software application for the adaptive silicon, the assurance of the integrity of the silverware being obtained is paramount. Accordingly, as described above, there are several points during distribution in which security checking occurs to provide the assurance. Thus, there are multiple opportunities of potential revenue generation that exist during distribution and extend beyond the initial licensing fees charged to venture companies to use the ACE in a specific market. With reference to step 1120 of
The provision of a license server 1104 offers another revenue generation opportunity during distribution. As described above, the license server 1104 acts an integral part of the distribution process. Further, a license server 1104 needs to be provided by each silverware developer 1108. By offering the license server service either directly to each developer, or by offering the software, and possible consulting services, for the establishment of the license server, an additional avenue for revenue generation is created.
For non-web environments, a download server presents an option for performing downloads to an application on a host computer system, which then communicates to the ACE. While there is no security required here, the need for the mechanism is another point that exists for distribution revenue generation.
An additional revenue opportunity can be generated from issuing certificates. For the distribution process, each license server 1104 needs a certificate, as does the signing authority and each ACE. Thus, a fee can be generated for each certificate, or alternatively, for issuing a certain number of certificates to each developer 1108. Further, there is a cost to running a certificate authority, since it has to be housed in a secure facility and run securely, which can be recovered directly by inclusion in the fee generation.
In this manner, multiple opportunities for continued revenue generation are achieved through the aspects of distribution in accordance with the present invention. Further, the aspects of the distribution process itself provide a safe, reliable, and efficient approach to ensuring successful and convenient consumer product access.
From the foregoing, it will be observed that numerous variations and modifications may be effected without departing from the spirit and scope of the novel concept of the invention. It is to be understood that no limitation with respect to the specific methods and apparatus illustrated herein is intended or should be inferred. It is, of course, intended to cover by the appended claims all such modifications as fall within the scope of the claims.
This is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 10/010,018 filed on Dec. 5, 2001 now abandoned, and is claiming the benefit of that application under 35 USC §120. The present application is related to application Ser. No. 10/199,900, entitled “Consumer Product Distribution In The Embedded System Market With Structure To Increase Revenue Potential”, filed Jul. 18, 2002.
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Child | 10199923 | US |