Abstract: A license storage key is provided for securely storing information regarding which licenses have been purchased for a network of computers, how many of each license have been purhcased, and any time limits associated with each license. An application program to be run on a computer must be assigned a license in the license storage key associated with the computer before it will be permitted to run. If a license cannot be found on the local key, a license may be found on another key in the network of computers and transferred to the local key so that the application program may be run in this case, when the license is released. The license storage key contains a hardware clock which is used to determine whether a license has expired.