Elliot Gottfurcht's company, EMG Technology LLC, made news when it filed suit late last year against Apple. The suit currently claims that the iPhone's mobile web surfing technology infringes two of Gottfurcht's other patents. This litigation is ongoing.

The patent to be auctioned on July 23rd relates to a different web-based technology: internet searching and personalized recommendations. US Patent 6,611,881 "Method and System of Providing Credit Card User with Barcode Purchase Data and Recommendation Automatically on their Personal Computer," assigned to Personal Data Network Corporation, provides a system that may revolutionize the search industry.

Conventional search technologies "learn" what a user's interests and habits are, and tailor results and recommendations accordingly to maximize positive results. This type of search software, while powerful, is still limited to relying on a user's online activity for help in filtering more helpful results from less. The ˜881 patent describes a system by which all of a user's activity (especially purchasing activity), even away from the computer, is made available to the user's search program to further refine results and recommendations. The technique disclosed in the patent employs existing, ubiquitous systems like credit cards and smart cards, which will significantly ease adoption of the technology. With a broader and deeper pool of data to work with, search software will become more personalized than ever, and return more relevant results without page after page of distracting off-target hits. The patent was first filed in March, 2000.

"Assets in this lot will be of interest to any business entity engaged in designing, building, selling or maintaining any form of search technology, online commerce, smart cards, and social networking platforms," said Dean Becker of ICAP Ocean Tomo, "and should be extremely valuable for companies looking to improve their mobile commerce patent portfolios today."

Potential buyers/licensees include designers, manufacturers, distributors, importers and users of search technologies, smart cards, online commerce technologies, and social networking tools.

The patent being sold has been cited as prior art in patents of numerous firms including Sony Corporation (NYSE:SNE) and Microsoft (NYSE:MSFT).