Mr. Svigals was a senior manager in IBM product development. He led the IBM team that developed the first international-standard magnetic-striped cards and tickets and architected their identification and authorization system design, now carried into smart devices. Since leaving IBM, he has contributed to five US patents. Patent 5,806,045 of 9/8/98 is considered the definitive patent for loyalty/incentive systems. More recently, he has obtained four US patents (8,453,223, dated 5/28/13; 8,806,603, dated 8/12/14; 8,997,188, dated 3/31/15; and 9,009,807, dated 4/14/15). These four are dedicated to the design of an Internet-based secure transaction system.
