Intellectual property metering(7)

Abstract. We have developed the first hardware and software (intellectual property) metering scheme that enables reliable low overhead proofs for the number of manufactured parts and copied programs. The key idea is to make each design slightly different d

Another research, to some extent related to our work, is forensic engineering tech-nique, that has been explored for detection of authentic Java byte-codes [3] and to perform identity or partial copy detection for digital libraries [4]. Also, forensic analysis principles are used in the VLSI CAD to demonstrate that solutions produced by strategically differ-ent algorithms can be associated with their corresponding algorithms with high accuracy [22].

Sampling and auditing are the two main methods for measuring the popularity of media channels. Sampling, like the Nielsen Media Research and NetRatings Inc., is based on surveys among a representing group of users [30]. Web page access metering has been addressed by a number of researchers and companies. For example, Pitkow proposed tech-niques to uniquely identify users and to compensate for the usage of proxies and cashes [30]. Franklin and Malkhi developed the lightweight security WWW page usage scheme [15]. Recently, Naor and Pinkas proposed a rigorous secret sharing-based WWW page access method [26]. Another potential alternative is to use micro-payment protocols for WWW usage [27].

Majority of software vendors currently employ licensing as the primary way of pro-tecting their software packages, such as text formatting and CAD tools. Licensing soft-ware ensures the vendor with a certain degree of control over the distributed software. For example, licensing software may prevent unauthorized duplication of software packages or Licensing is a major enabling component for software distribution. For example, over $40 billion of installed third party software uses GLOBEtrotter’s Electronic commerce for software technology FLEX1m. Today’s dominating software licensing mechanism is based on license key concept. A key is encrypted by using a string of data that contains software package ID and its usage constraints (e.g. expiration date) and the serial number of the computer where the key is installed. The invocation of the software package is done automatically when software is invoked by using one of the password schemes [25, 13].

A large number of patented licensing protocols have been proposed. For example, licenses can be used not only to authenticate the legal users, but also to upgrade the prod-ucts, and other after-market information transmissions[28] or licensing using smart cards [29, 2].

3 Preliminaries

3.1 Problem Scenario

Consider the following scenario that requires hardware metering: a start-up design company A builds a system that outperforms all the similar products on the market. A gives the VHDL description of the system to manufacturer B and makes an agreement with B to fabricate 10 million copies. The first 2 million copies sold out almost immedi-ately, then the sale slows down even when company A lowers the price. It seems the mar-ket has already been saturated. Meanwhile, market survey shows that there are about 12 million similar products in use. A suspects that foundry B has violated the agreement and fabricated more than 10 million copies without reporting to A. However, for a given prod-uct, A cannot provide convincing evidence to tell whether this copy is legally sold or not. Therefore, A fails to recover its R&D revenue.

We observe that the problem comes from the fact that A sells identical products on the market. If they can give each product a unique identification number, then when two prod-ucts with the same identification number are found, the existence of unauthorized