-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Walker Digital, a self-described "Edison in Menlo Park" knockoff, and propagator of the priceline.com business model patent (which see, above), is the feature article of this week's omi-1998-gawd issue of The Industry Standard. WD has been patenting everything it can think of, including something I heard of at least 3 years ago from Eric Hughes and Bob Hilby at Simple Access: accumulating internet purchases to a 900- telephone number bill. However, since WD is 5 years old, maybe they got there first after after all, and that's why Hilby, Hughes and Co., stopped talking about it. Either that or Eric got Yet Another Big Idea, and they went chasing down *that* rabbithole instead. As a mostly unmedicated ADDer, I can sympathize with that problem, myself :-)... Anyway, since business process patents are the subject of this month's DCSB meeting, with what I'm sure will be a great talk by Michael Schmelzer and Ira Heffan of Testa Hurwitz here in Boston, I figured I'd give everyone on these lists some food for beforehand. People should monitor <http://www.thestandard.com>, for the actual text of the article, if and when it eventually hits their archives. It'll probably take a week or so. If, of course, they don't have a copy of the magazine themselves already, that is. William Braddock, who's the chairman and CEO of Priceline now, used to be up my direct chain of command, three or four bosses up, when I was an operations analyst at Citicorp 10 years ago, though I never met him. Eventually, he ended up President and CEO of Citicorp after I left. The guys I worked for always used to talk about him reverentually, but that could just be an organization-man thing. I seem to remember Steve Schear, who used to work at a different Citicorp company back then, talking lately about Braddock once or twice, but I can't remember if Schear knew Braddock back then or not. Finally, and most important for us, it looks like Bruce Schnier's involved with Walker Digital as a partner. Given the cryptographic content of not a few of their patents, (like 5,828,751, "Method for Secure Measurement Certification", or 5,768,832, "Remote-Auditing of Computer-Generated Outcomes and Authenticated Billing and Access-Control System Using Cryptographic and Other Protocols") it looks like that's where he's parking some of his IP these days. But, of course, I haven't gone to look at the patents themselves to see if his name's on them, so that's only speculation. Curioser and curioser. Reading all of this stuff this afternoon me made me antsy enough, grouchy, really, to start a rant about this kind of patent-farming, sparked both by all the registered trademarks in the DigiCash bankruptcy filing, and compounded all the fun things Walker Digital has gone and patented, things which are braindead simple. To some people, anyway. :-). Priceline, for instance, seems to me exactly like the specialist's book at the New York Stock Exchange, frankly, but since it's now on the internet, it's patentable, according to the Patent Office. Anyway, the rant on this is forthcoming, or at least in the hopper, my having vented a little steam here, and, in the meantime, I thought I'd fire off this heads-up to everyone so they can read the Industry Standard article themselves. It's on Page 60 of the December 28 / January 4 issue. And, tangentally, to plug January 5th's DCSB meeting, of course, :-), which should be a really good one, in light of current events. Cheers, Robert Hettinga -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.5.5 iQEVAwUBNoFsicUCGwxmWcHhAQFQzQgAmVZDbchvpnDb5/ofq9OKGu5yqD9YMnyf I0H75rjorm/k9TNSC8kH1yvp8s0n6eaXh0r7Bf0CayYeAKg+4tZHHjysHKxKowwR Xjcmm8ACwNLTlQTF1GWpaUoSE5RQ3cDZJKJGHA3OQRRewJlC7D/Zz48pZfP7EXuB ASDOC+f+aDjAYFa66d8ax1a49SbKC4Xpr0blpxp9uCU7aUdgJp51H25jiZvE/Wi3 NvgxDZzw1me6LToSPZR+qa7rmExlEyFJsDmhYkhHh7PH8qOR4gwGXD9ZunpPlm6U buW99TtKNzM32os0Pdbod9AcuifOS+s1f5ubJxJ5i21RmeeOPEtiig== =wb+S -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----------------- Robert A. 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'