a method and apparatus which protects software against unauthorized use which is bound to at least one certain hardware device . the hardware device includes unique hardware identification sequences like unique hardware numbers / addresses , serial numbers or other embedded hardware characterization sequences . a special license key has to be passed to the software at the first activation . the license key contains among other things encrypted hardware identification sequences which are compared with the read out sequences of the accessible hardware devices . the use of the software features is permitted if the sequences match .