BioPassword purchased the patents in 2002, then further developed the technology and commercialized it.

In 2004, the company released its first product for the workgroup market, and this year, it released products for Internet and enterprise network security systems. The software currently runs on Windows, but BioPassword is looking to extend it to the Unix/Linux environment.

"Probably the single biggest hurdle was to determine the best implementation of the client component in Internet implementations," says Wood. "ActiveX controls are generally frowned on by users, but we needed a reliable, highly distributed technology that could easily be integrated into the user browser."

To overcome that challenge, the product was designed as a Flash plug-in that requires no user installation.

The big advantage BioPassword has over other types of authentication is that it is purely software based. That makes it an appealing option in situations where installing biometric readers isn't practical.