patent battle in Delaware

A trial in Delaware District Court next week sees a 74 year-old inventor taking on some large corporations. The case is over a patent that he claims is the basis for the secure sockets layer standard that a very large number of sites use to protect data sent back and forth between commercial web sites, and their customers.

The legal challenge was filed two years ago against Verisign Inc., RSA Security Inc. and four other companies by Leon Stambler, a retired electronics engineer who lives in Pompano Beach, Fla. He contends software they use to let Internet commerce companies verify customers' identities and secure communications with customers violates his patents.

Should be an interesting battle.