Is someone trying to steal credit for inventing the eTicket?

3 points by rexarex 1 year ago | 1 comment

The eTicket is what we use for flights today instead of physical, paper tickets printed on special paper.

My understanding of the lore is that it was invented by Southwest Airlines or a company they acquired. That's what I heard on a How I Built This podcast episode with the founder of JetBlue. It's also mentioned in this research paper here https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Historical-adoption-of-e-tickets-by-IATA-airlines-Data-sources-IATA-and-Peter-P_fig9_268425966

Strangely, when I was googling I found what I suspect to be planted misinformation in a Bangkok Post article where someone named Joel Goheen claims to have invented the eTicket on JRG Airlines (https://www.bangkokpost.com/life/social-and-lifestyle/388116/a-ticket-to-ride#).

JRG Airlines does not exist, and appear to be just the initials of Joel R Goheen. However, he appears on a U.S. Patent for eTicketing for 1994 the same time they started using eTickets. (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5724520A/en)

I think it's really strange. I did some googling of his name and eTicket and there appears to be what to me looks like a lot of planted answer on websites stating Joel R Goheen invented the eTicket but with weasel words and no proof to actually prove that.

On one hand, CNN and other major news sources and articles credit SouthWest with first using the eTickets. and JRG Airlines seems clearly fake or at least completely lost to history. But, this gentleman owns the patent. Could he be a patent troll?

I think there's more to this story. Does anyone have some insight?

seabass-labrax 1 year ago |

A patent troll is generally understood to be someone who abuses a patent to extort money from good-faith manufacturers. Plenty of people apply for patents just so that they can claim that they're 'inventors', without ever intending to even enforce these patents, let alone abuse them with specious lawsuits. Whether this Joel Goheen is a patent troll depends on his behaviour while the patent was extant, not the fact he registered it.

Nonetheless, it is clear to me that the patent itself does not describe a novel invention. There is basically nothing original about the idea: plastic magnetic strip cards, databases, consumer credit - all of these were around for decades prior to 1994. The composition of these into a transport booking or payment system was obvious even then; stored-value smartcards had already been in development for multiple years.

All in all, I certainly share the interest in the history of electronic ticketing, but I would dismiss any singular claim of 'inventing' the technology. I think it was inevitable from the moment digital computers started to be viable.