Card Briefs: Standard Approved for Drexler's LaserCard

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Drexler Technology Corp., developer of the card encoding technology that it markets as LaserCard, said the International Organization for Standardization has approved a technical standard for the cards and the laser-optical method of writing and reading data on them.

The published standard is known as "Dela," for Drexler European Licensees Association, which established a de facto standard in 1989.

After a five-year process, the final step for international approval came in a vote on part four of the document known as ISO/IEC 11694, "logical data structures." Representatives of 29 countries voted for adoption, with one opposed and one abstaining.

Drexler said its 4.1-megabyte card, a storage medium for personal computers and a potential alternative to smart cards with embedded computer chips, has yielded $37 million in license fees plus royalties on a series of relevant patents.

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