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Abaca Founder and Chairman Steve Kirsch Wins 2008 Inventor of the Year Award
Industry Veteran Honored by the Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association for Technological Achievements Spanning 25 Years
SAN JOSE, CALIF., September 24, 2008 – Abaca Technology Corporation, an innovator in email protection and messaging security, today announced that its founder and chairman Steve Kirsch has been named inventor of the year by the Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association (SVIPLA). The award honors Kirsch’s numerous technological achievements as a Silicon Valley inventor and entrepreneur over the past 25 years.
SVIPLA is a professional association of members who focus their practice on intellectual property matters including patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, licensing, litigation and other related fields. Each year SVIPLA selects the Inventor of the Year based upon nominees’ contributions to the technical arts.
Steve Kirsch is best known for inventing technologies that have dramatically improved the direction of the high-tech industry: the optical mouse, Internet search technologies, Internet and email accelerators, and most recently a new anti-spam technology. All of these inventions were developed at startup companies Kirsch co-founded.
Kirsch is also well known as the founder of Frame Technology Corporation, which was acquired by Adobe Systems Incorporated in 1995, and Infoseek Corporation, which was acquired by The Walt Disney Company in 1999. While at Infoseek, Kirsch was responsible for creating one of the industry’s first Internet search engines, including the NetSearch service, Ultraseek Server, Infoseek Express, GO Guides and GO Auction. Following the acquisition of Infoseek, Kirsch founded Propel Software, where he invented an Internet and email accelerator.
The success of Kirsch’s companies and inventions serendipitously led to his latest high-tech venture, Abaca Technology Corporation. As a prominent Silicon Valley denizen, Kirsch found his email inbox flooded with spam on a daily basis. Personally frustrated by the ineffectiveness of the anti-spam solutions currently available, he set out to invent a better one. Three years later, he launched the Abaca Email Protection Gateway™, an email security product so powerfully accurate that it blocks up to 99.9 percent of spam.
“I’m driven to keep inventing new technologies because I enjoy the challenge of solving problems no one else can solve,” said Kirsch. “At times the development process has been very slow and difficult, but my strength is my tenacity. Because I stuck with it, I’ve watched my ideas come to fruition, and millions of people now benefit from the technologies I helped to create. That’s extremely gratifying to me.”
“Steve Kirsch has been at the forefront in developing several innovative technologies that are now standard throughout the industry,” said Glenn E. Von Tersch, secretary and treasurer of the Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association. “Without inventions like the optical mouse, anti-spam software and the Internet search engine, the world we live in would be a much less productive place than it is today.”
About SVIPLA
The Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association (SVIPLA) is a professional association of members who focus their practice on intellectual property matters including patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, licensing, litigation and other related fields. Membership is open to anyone who is interested in intellectual property law. For more information please visit www.svipla.com.
About Abaca Technology Corporation
Abaca Technology Corporation is an innovator in email protection and messaging security. Abaca’s patent-pending technology, ReceiverNet™, offers an advanced approach in the fight against spam—providing unprecedented levels of accuracy and guaranteeing 99 percent spam filtration. Abaca has created a portfolio of innovative products and services based upon this core technology, thereby assuring users unparalleled messaging protection from spam, as well as viruses and phishing attacks. Abaca is a privately held company headquartered in San Jose, California. For more information about Abaca, please visit www.abaca.com.
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Abaca®, Email Protection Gateway™, Abaca® Email Protection Gateway™, ReceiverNet™, and the Abaca logos are trademarks of Abaca Technology Corporation and may be registered in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. Other trademarks shown are the property of their respective owners.
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Media Contact:
Donna Candelori
Candelori Communications Inc.
408-774-3414
dcandelori@candelori.com
