Hi John, the licenses are used for enabling specific firewall features, Im providing this link for you to go over which explains in more details. If you are planning to aquire PIX515E make sure it is UR (unrestricted ) as it has maximun features enabled, if you get R it is fine too but you will be limited to some features and if you want to enable them then you need to purchase features activation keys to convert (R) to (UR) ..see details in link, if you have additional question let us know.