Patents: New Scientist reports that IBM have applied for a patent on “an electronic password ‘wallet’ that securely stores all your passwords, with overall access via a single password. The wallet pops up on screen whenever you are asked for a password. You enter the master password and the wallet then answers the online request by pasting in the appropriate password for that site.”
This should be familiar to anyone who’s used Mozilla’s Form Manager feature, which fits the patent claims perfectly. That page notes that the Mozilla feature was created in 1999, just under 3 years before the patent application. Let’s hope the USPTO remember to do a Google search this time!
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