Briefs

Sabra Chartrand reports in July 30, 2001 New York Times that
Alexander Tuzhilin, a professor at New York University has patented
a method of building customer profiles and using them to recommend
products and services. The professor says that
his invention covers such fundamental profiling practices that it will
dominate the business of customer relationship management, or CRM.

At the very least, it is almost certain to engender controversy. It
appears to be yet another patent based on business methods already
widely used in an important and growing part of the economy � and
one that might raise objections from the companies already engaged in
consumer profiling.

The patent belongs to New York University, where Mr. Tuzhilin is a
professor of information systems at the Stern School of Business. He
says the university is likely to try licensing the patent to companies
it thinks are already conducting business with similar technology. A
press release cited customer relationship management companies like
Oracle, BroadVision, Clarify, E.piphany and PeopleSoft.

Many of the companies already engaged in consumer profiling might not
agree that Mr. Tuzhilin's patent is as far-reaching as he contends.

For full discussion of the patent controversy,
see http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/30/business/30PATE.html

(Access is free, but registration for first-time visitors is required)