Ronald A. Katz

In 2004, the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office ordered four of the Katz patents to be reexamined. The Director determined that a "substantial new question of patentability" had been raised. Since then, certain members of the public have also filed requests for reexamination of ten more Katz patents. These requests were based on said members of the public submitting new prior art that could raise "substantial new question of patentability" as to the validity of the patents. In three of the cases, the patent office disagreed and felt that the new prior art was not sufficiently strong to warrant a reexamination. In the other seven cases, the patent office agreed and ordered reexaminations. All reexaminations were still ongoing as of January 2007.

Katz has also founded Telebuyer, LLC, a privately held company that commercializes inventions he made relating to electronic commerce and network-based monitoring systems. In the early 1990s, Mr. Katz developed a computer-controlled video system for monitoring remote locations, and an advanced scheduling and routing system for telephone and video communications. Mr. Katz leveraged his knowledge and work in these areas to create an electronic commerce system to help businesses reach customers in remote locations.

In 1961, Katz co-founded Telecredit, Inc. This was the first company to "enable merchants to verify consumer checks over the phone using an automated system without the assistance of a live operator". In 1988, Mr. Katz formed a partnership with American Express Company to provide call processing services. That partnership later became First Data Corporation.

Ronald A. Katz (born March 10, 1936) is an inventor and president of Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing LP. His inventions are primarily in the field of automated call center technology. Katz has developed a portfolio of more than 50 US patents covering his innovations. His inventions are related to toll free numbers, automated attendant, automated call distribution, voice response unit, computer telephone integration and speech recognition.