-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Okay. Contrary to my own previous -- and painfully recent -- opinions on the matter, Digicash, Inc., is, more or less, in play again, or it will be if there is enough money chasing it. Whatever "enough" means. Putting on my Gordon Gekko hat, here, I'm interested in finding out a few things. Yes, I have seen the greater fool theory of the blind signature patent operate more than a few times, but I am, nonetheless, driven to think about this, and I might as well be public in my musing, at least for the time being. For expenses of any new company, it should be pretty clear by now what I would do with the DigiCash technology portfolio. I would put a real good intellectual property lawyer on the payroll, keep the cryptographers who would still consent to stick around, keep or improve whatever software test people they have left, and do nothing but sell licenses and implementation certifications, using the the underwiting model at <http://www.philodox.com/modelpaper.html> as a roadmap. For this imaginary company's revenue, aside from direct fees for validating a developer's, and possibly an underwriter's, implementation of the protocol, the trustee would be the only point of patent royalty collection and payment from the underwriters and developers to the new patent holder. As far as the current installed base is concerned, I would probably spin off a company to support those customers, and give it a non-exclusive license as if it were any other developer. This assumes, of course, that DigiCash BV/Inc. didn't issue exclusive-by-country licenses. While it appears on the surface that they have done exactly this, I have been met with what seems like incredulity from various DigiCash folks when I talk about it, so, for the time being, I'll take them at their word when they tell me it isn't so. Actually, when I think about it, it may be immaterial, as there are lots of countries on the internet to park underwriters and trustees in, and they can denominate their bearer cash instruments in any currency they want. One way or another, the software side of DigiCash would be gone. We figure out what the net present value is of the current licenses, and hope that a company can be formed around that cashflow and spun off into a separate software development company. If we're lucky, we make money on the spinoff and keep the patent. If we're not lucky, DigiCash will probably have to get rid of it's current obligations before *anyone* clueful would step in to pick up the patents, and just the patents, alone. Obviously, what has been spent so far building DigiCash, BV or Inc., is immaterial to any discussion of the future. Just like what happened to Chaum, et. al., when Negroponte and companies um, executed, the purchase of last version of DigiCash, we have to completely forget the all the money which has been spent on Digicash BV, now Digicash Inc., so far, and ignore the howls of the current investors, as painful as that may be to listen to. :-). They knew the job was dangerous when they took it, anyway... Okay, that's a nice story. How about some actual data? I expect the best way to get a handle of royalties is to start soliciting actual projected royalty estimates from potential developers and underwriters, but, frankly, I think that most developers and underwriters, like the rest of us, have no real idea how much money they're going to make. Nonetheless, if anyone's interested in telling me, offline, what they think they would would be fair royalty payments, either as an underwriter or as a developer, I'd like to hear their estimates. My PGP key is attached. My own rule of thumb, for cash anyway, is that an underwriter can probably charge no more than a bank charges to one of their non-customer ATM transactions. That's probably no more than $3.00 a withdrawl. They also get to keep the interest on the reserve account, if any, of course. Frankly, if the royalties are low enough, that may be more than enough revenue to bootstrap a business with, and I would personally lobby for as low a royalty structure as possible. That, of course, is driven entirely by the cost/revenue picture, but it might be that a majority of the short-term operations can be bootstrapped out of validation fees. That leaves all the other potential markets for blind-signature macroscale digital bearer settlement, everything from long-duration bandwidth purchases for IP or voice dialtone on up to actual securities transactions themselves. Most of these potential applications will occur after the patents expire, but whoever owns these patents should allow not only licenses to all comers, but, more to the point, should allow all *licensees* to worry about the legal ramafications of the patents' use. If a particular licensee can find a legal jurisdiction to offer utterly anonymous digital bearer instruments backed by totally anonymous reserves, then, as long as the licensee pays up, god bless 'em. The patents should be licensed within the law, certainly, but, other than that, their use should be considered value neutral, like all technology. As in all bearer markets before them, the digital bearer trustee will be the point of maximum legal compliance, and, as such, will be the functional "policeman" of the system. I leave the interesting solution of bearer-backed trustees for some other day, probably after the patents have long expired. Okay. There's lots more to talk about, of course, but I'm kind of tapped out on this for the time being. If you're an intellectual property lawyer, and you fancy yourself running the DigiCash patent portfolio, contact me directly. I'm not sure exactly what I can do, if anything, but I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on this, as the potential core person of this as yet imaginary enterprize, up to, and including what it would cost for you to sign on for this much fun as at least in-house counsel, if not the actual CEO. :-). In addition, if someone has a reasonable non-proprietary(!) estimate of the projected revenues on all those outstanding ecash contracts, that would be nice to know as well. The terms of those contracts, are, of course, probably unknowable at the moment, at least until someone has enough known scratch to belly up to the table, sign an NDA and take a peek. Of course, then they couldn't tell us anything anyway... Isn't this fun? Cheers, Bob Hettinga -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.5.5 iQEVAwUBNkDcTMUCGwxmWcHhAQFEgwf8DBmtjkxkrvwRBNdaMHwLGkjPHPFvhrNq +IwQrajratocfyKDmeUIiC4EmPIFxstFg59plpzgnM8TTXqSebqsYZaycVZquo03 SDI2cXV9H4O+iUdW9glpT4R0aZbGMXTu3ji9wbvvYjSqVro4w6cq3f9Tk6QGGCdW AQQolnnTkSjqXeafWrD0WxDXbQCw83lKcrTmFHAkP/YzDD8Z5obVD4+THd3Zlcys jyAlvAcZFwcxtifumBh8vNrSLc0vdkdD4+Mw5TDRqRMHynF+DLE6Ek2kOL+3blJ2 R6vfaYzVJTRjJFtVdYrbctWAkbWCL/Obf31oZzsz1cWtNn6TgVmG/g== =M1uk -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Here are my PGP keys, for them as want 'em: -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.5.5 mQGiBDS2zbQRBADkXbVlxD0ABf66RPDa//8wtyO3evDk3dMLl9gV9W6W8BQds9gM 2KyV/wnHq62tW7PSjw/CJY83da45KeX04LUNGD2TOOCRdYNBhVhmSWlXbomKMJNi +TCisQKnS9U/ybFEKJErNpoapsh6m02RK4WADZk0pwO1Rh4K+P6sVRJktwCg/8iQ uMwVCdEaKgo7RRTvRcA4NusEAIDKsblYtLCFagDELioT8YfV5FgROpmlhZWwCG7e VrKQwQCFawJqrORMVOkjmppYAvPMoiAXT1vdlHXecB8VSzQjH92e7mrN/PSWIuTg 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Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.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'