TestDrive™ Awarded Industry’s First Patent for Try-Before-You-Buy Software Encryption Technology
SANTA CLARA, CA, November 1, 1994.... TestDrive™ Corporation announced that the company has been granted a patent on its try-before-you-buy data encryption scheme for digital material. U.S. Patent 5,341,429 was issued for TestDrive’s encryption technology, which allows publishers, PC manufacturers and OEMs to offer users fully-functional trial versions of software prior to purchase. This capability can be used to bring true, hands-on product experiences to CD-ROMs, on-line shopping, digital TV, videos, photo CDs, music recordings and electronic databases.
The patent allows content publishers to offer fully functional versions of their products for trial periods. With TestDrive’s invention, a user can evaluate fully functional versions of original software programs without requiring the original publisher to modify the program in any way. After using the trial versions of the product, a user can then purchase the product through phone, such as 1-800 number, or in the future, through dial-in request (via direct modem connection, on-line service or Internet).
TestDrive offers this capability in its line of TestDrive Home Software Shopper™ CD-ROMs, which provides subscribers with trials, demos and product information on over 200 Windows software products from leading manufacturers including Borland International, Lotus Development Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Novell/WordPerfect Corporation, Time Warner and Virgin Games. In addition, TestDrive licenses its try-before-you-buy encryption scheme to publishers,
PC manufacturers and other OEMs for CD-ROM and other digital media.
This patent protects TestDrive’s position as the only provider of secure, try-before-you-buy technology for electronic media, said Ed Lauing, TestDrive President and CEO, TestDrive’s encryption scheme is the only one in the industry that offers both security for the publisher’s intellectual property and real hands-on experience for the buyer. While companies are now incorporating our encryption scheme primarily for electronic shopping, we also expect this capability to impact not only the PC publishing business, but the advertising business as well, since electronic ads can now offer product trials as well as purchase. With analysts predicting that, within a few years, 25% of software sales will be through electronic media, we believe that our technology will be a key factor in making electronic shopping both enjoyable and more productive for buyers worldwide.
Privately-funded, the company is backed by R.R. Donnelley & Sons, Co. (Chicago, IL), the world’s largest commercial printing company, with revenues over $5 billion. For more information, contact TestDrive Corporation, 2933 Bunker Hill Lane, Suite 101, Santa Clara, CA 95054. Phone: (408) 496-0555. Fax (408) 496-6810. User order number: (800) 788-8055. URL: testdrive.com. |
