@Tylemahos. Didn't get back to this earlier... rain? I'm building a boat!
I'll get to your question in a moment, but first a disambiguation (a la Wikipedia).
The original US patent filed 10 June 2006 (
#7720787) refers to ShEBA (Structured Evidence-Based Analysis of Hypotheses) as the "prototype software application" for the invention. It appears over time this has become known as Intelfuze (as per
my earlier post). The recent
communication from Marketlend related to their partnership with Veriluma refers to the "Java-based solution called Intelfuze... and Veriluma's patented Sheba technology". [I haven't compared this with Veriluma's Australian patent #
AU2006202485 filed a day earlier on 9 June 2006 as the IPAustralia site doesn't show the full patent.]
And now to your query.
I agree the book chapter you found (from 2003) does appear to describe research leading towards Comvine - "...[a] contextual search engine and semiotics platform which searches on the meaning of phrases rather than on pure text" (taken from what I assume is a now defunct
inQbator website). It also appears that in 2008
Comvine Ptd Ltd tech (est. 2007) and DistIP Ptd Ltd's Intelfuze were being co-developed (as suggested by the address details for developer
David Novakovic on
this page). However, it also appears that Comvine Pty Ltd filed for
voluntary bankruptcy (insolvency) with ASIC and was deregistered in 2012.
From reading the patent, I would say that Comvine and ShEBA/Interfuze were always distinct offerings. With the fierce competition and rapid innovation in computational linguistics in the past decade, and with no clear edge or patent, it is hardly surprising that Comvine Ptd Ltd went under. I doubt there has been any further development on this at all in the past few years (and it is not listed on the current
iQFunds website).
Veriluma has a very clear niche and what appear to be robust patents (at least in the US and Australia).
Critically, the algorithms and processes at the core of their offering are not easily diminished by the rapid tech. innovations over the past decade.
I hope that helps. All IMHO. Cheers R-7
(20min delay)