PINoptic

History

Visual Probabilistic One Time Password (VPOTP) was first proposed by Mark Bedworth in 2000 and further refined by him in 2003. In 2004 he started to concentrate exclusively on VPOTP and received proof on concept funding from N-Star. He filed patent applications relating to VPOTP on 16th December 2004 in both the UK (0427508.7) and US (60/636,311) under the title "User Validation Using Images". These patents were extended to international coverage using the Patent Co-operation Treaty on 16th December 2005 (PCT/GB2005/004846) and published on 16th June 2006 (WO2006/064241). The patents are now wholly owned by PINoptic Ltd. who is completing the patent protection in individual countries.

In 2004 PINoptic Ltd. was incorporated as a limited company in England having registration number 05233452 with Colin Allison as CEO. He appointed the inventor, Mark Bedworth, as the company's CTO and, early in 2005, secured external investment to finance an intense period of analysis and testing. This testing was successfully completed in 2006 when the company moved into a more market-centric posture.

In 2007 a further round of investment was secured and the rights to PINoptic were acquired from the original inventor by PINoptic Ltd. which now owns the associated patents outright.