another wave arrives, and is seen for what it is

[totient]

Back in June of 2001, when the patent that would become the seed for phi systems was first issued, I also got a fair tidal wave of spam from folks trying to sell me engraved tokens of my genius or the like. Patents have a renewal fee which is due after three and a half years, and the shysters have started up again, filling my recycle bin with unopened solicitations made to look as official as possible without bringing down the wrath of a mail fraud prosecution. If anything the second wave was larger than the first -- and today I stumbled across the reason why. United States Patent 6,804,316 -- the first of three by date of invention or application -- has finally been issued. Maybe the second one (which was the seed for another dead company) will eventually make it through the pipeline too.