Patent Allowances For New Type Of Airline Ticket Granted To Walker Digital

Business Wire, Dec 29, 1998

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 29, 1998--

. . . Stamford lab best known for priceline.com patent invents new

type of airline ticket: Travelers who can be flexible will get

access to lower fares by letting airlines choose flights

Walker Digital Corporation, the Stamford, Conn.-based intellectual property laboratory, has received a notice of allowance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office covering a new kind of reduced-fare airline ticket. The new type of ticket, called a "Flexticket", lets flexible travelers save money by allowing airlines to choose what flights to put them on. A traveler would buy a Flexticket to fly on a certain day at an advertised, reduced rate. Immediately after the Flexticket is purchased, the airline's computer system will automatically assign specific flights and times based on the airline's available seating for that day.

Walker Digital's invention lets airlines sell the kind of discount tickets that are sold only through priceline.com today. In the priceline.com service, airlines pick the flights, but customers name the price they're willing to pay for tickets. With Flextickets, airlines, not customers, set the price and then pick the flights where they have space. Consumers receive confirmed flight assignments immediately after they buy the tickets.

Flextickets bring back the cost savings of the old standby ticket without the uncertainty of being "bumped". Travelers have a confirmed seat to their destination on the day they want to travel - at substantial savings. Airlines have the ability to generate incremental revenues by booking Flexticket travelers on lower-demand flights. This allows airlines to continue to sell seats on busier flights to travelers who prefer not to be flexible in their itinerary.

"Every day, airlines in the U.S. fly over 500,000 empty seats," said Jay Walker, chairman of Walker Digital. "Priceline.com was the first way we invented to fill those seats. We believe that by developing new and different kinds of airline products, carriers can capture unsold demand and fill even more of those empty seats at good profit margins. Flexticket licensees will be able to generate incremental sales for seats that otherwise would have flown empty." Walker Digital said that, based on prior agreements with priceline.com, it will assign its Flexticket patent to priceline.com.

In addition to allowing the airlines to set flight times, variations of Flextickets can be configured to optimize demand in other ways. For example, Flextickets could be set up to permit an airline to select the specific departure or arrival airport, total travel time or number of stops. The product configuration would depend on how an airline wanted to market this new type of ticket. Another form of Flexticket could conceal the identity of the specific airline until after the customer used his or her credit card to purchase the ticket.

Earlier this year, Walker Digital was issued two other airline-applicable patents. The first (U.S. Patent No. 5,794,207) was for a system that lets buyers name their price for goods and services, including leisure airline tickets, while sellers decide whether or not to accept the offers. The second (U.S. Patent No. 5,797,127) covers the sale of airline ticket options, where travelers purchase the right to buy a ticket for certain future travel dates at a specified price. Both patents have been assigned by Walker Digital to priceline.com.

Priceline.com's name-your-price service for leisure airline tickets has already sold more than 100,000 tickets since its launch in April 1998. A second name-your-price service for hotel rooms is now available in 200 cities. Priceline.com also offers a name-your-price service for cash new-car buyers in the New York metro market and will launch name-your-price home mortgage services this month.

Walker Digital Corporation develops and patents innovative information-based solutions for businesses. Walker Digital currently owns more than 200 pending patent applications, and is a leader in the field of business process patents.