Latent Semantics was invented at Bellcore in late 1980s, by an All-Star information science team including Tom Landauer, George Furnas, and Sue Dumais. (IP alert: It’s patented.) There’s a more recent description from Tom Landauer’s university group here (PDF) and another overview under Creative Commons license here.
So all that mumbling and griping about being a Prime Mover in this space were an utter waste of time. I remember reading that if you tell a VC that you’re the only one working on a solution to problem X, that tells them problem X isn’t a compelling problem: you can watch their eyes glaze over as they mentally move on to the next presentation. I thought that was bad, but far worse is to be unaware that your big idea was patented 10 years earlier.
It’s a very deflating feeling. I had no idea this had been done already. Perhaps a more tech-savvy legal team would have known how to find the facts. I don’t know.
Pthbthbthbth.