Charles Kheng

Sony has filed a new patent which will use load times to detect software piracy.

The patent, which was filed in 2011, was only published last week and made available by DarkZero. The tech will compare a software load time against a legitimate and acceptable Sony benchmark. Should the software’s load time fall out of range of Sony’s benchmark, the tech will then proceed to collect the user’s Identification Information, where it will then perform a Secondary Validation. If the software should fail the Secondary Validation, the tech will then block the user.

The patent, titled Benchmark Measurement For Legitimate Duplication Validation, published less than a week after Sony formally announced their next generation console, the PlayStation 4, is suspected to be incorporated into it.