patent on remote cash transactions?

American Public Radio reported yesterday that some company was granted
a broad patent on remote cash transactions--they mentioned an article
in the NYTimes recently (NYT does patent reporting on Saturday typically, but
sometimes they do it in the business section on other days; I don't get
NYT anymore...); anyone here more about this?  Is this yet another 
example of bozo software patents?  If anyone finds out more, please post.


Paul E. Baclace
peb@procase.com

> American Public Radio reported yesterday that some company was granted
> a broad patent on remote cash transactions--they mentioned an article
> in the NYTimes recently (NYT does patent reporting on Saturday typically, but
> sometimes they do it in the business section on other days; I don't get
> NYT anymore...); anyone here more about this?  Is this yet another 
> example of bozo software patents?  If anyone finds out more, please post.

I read the NYT article, which was on the second page of the business section
in Monday's edition.  Apparently the patent was granted to a Virginia
company (don't recall the name, and that may be the wrong state... <sigh>)
and covers virtually anything that provides ATM-like functionality from a
home computer.  The exact boundaries of the patent weren't discussed in the
article, but I seriously doubt it would affect a digital cash system.

-- 
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