US Patent 10154020 Referral identity system and method of operation thereof

Approaches, techniques, and mechanisms are disclosed for providing referral identity systems and services. The referral identity system can provide a hardware based system for identifying users and the devices they are using and recognizing referrals from one device to another and/or from one user to another. Each of the users can be uniquely identified using a device identifier associated with a device that the user is using. The authentication and identity services can be used to license software and/or devices coupled with such software dynamically using integrated hardware, software, and firmware, and provide a validated identification difficult to spoof.