For the better part of a decade, now, I've compared David Chaum to the Wright Brothers... Read the article, and try to keep from laughing -- or blushing in the shock of recognition. National monopolies only worked for dynamite. The Chaum patents expire in less than a year. Cheers, RAH ----- <http://www.forbes.com/2003/11/19/1119aviation_print.html> Forbes A Century Of Flight How The Wright Brothers Blew It Phaedra Hise, 11.19.03, 7:00 AM ET The Flyer takes off from Kill Devil Hill, with Orville Wright at the controls, while his brother Wilbur looks on, on Dec. 17, 1903. In 1905 the Wright brothers enjoyed a complete monopoly on heavier-than-air aviation. They had the world's only working airplane, were the only two pilots able to fly it, and had applied for a formidable patent that would cover any plane with three-axis control. Yet within five years they would regularly be surpassed by competitors at home and abroad, and before what was remembered as the Golden Age of Aviation arrived in the 1920s, they would be out of the aircraft business entirely. What happened? <Snip...> -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'