I should also point out that I've since looked up their key patent again: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20080203148
I struggle to see "novelty" in it and perhaps that view is supported by UPSTO as it appears they issued a non-final rejection in late June. I'm no patent expert - but on my reading, the grounds for rejection look reasonably difficult to overcome. Perhaps that is not correct. It would be nice to have the companies view.
It's still not clear to me if their model is solely royalty/licensing - e.g. does payment for printing of the cards come out of their revenue from the China contract or not? Are they just providing information and some existing software or do they have other underlying direct/variable costs?
If the model is mostly royalty/licensing, then the suggested margins might stack up, but the status of the patent would seem fairly crucial. In which case, why haven't they reported on the rejection and stated their position?
ETC Price at posting:
39.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held