Introduction

Net revolutionary or slick salesman? Jay Walker is a subject who divides people.

To some, the 45-year-old New Yorker is simply a smooth-talking marketing man who has taken his pitch on to the internet and struck gold. To others, he is a visionary, reinventing the way commerce is conducted, as vital to society's development as Thomas Edison was in his day, and worth every cent of his $5 billion fortune.

Critics level two main charges against Walker and Priceline, his internet company. The first is that the heavily loss-making website, which invites visitors to name the price they want to pay for a variety of goods, from airline tickets to hotel rooms, is not financially viable. Even if it does turn profitable, critics argue that it will never be sufficient to justify the company's stratospheric market capitalization.

The second charge revolves around the issue of patents. Walker is nothing short of obsessive about protecting his assets - including intellectual ones such as business processes. His company, Walker Digital, has 25 patents approved and a further 225 pending. This includes a patent for the 'name-your-price' process underpinning Priceline's business.

This has brought Walker the kind of vitriol usually reserved for those heading for the penitentiary, rather than the internet Hall of Fame. How, the critics ask, can you patent a way of doing business? Bill Gates for one is not waiting to find out. Expedia, Microsoft's on-line travel business, has also launched a name-your-price service for airline tickets. The software giant says it is confident it can win any case brought by Walker Digital. Legal proceedings are now under way.