Patent Issued for Systems and methods for using tokenized and dynamic physical checks (USPTO 11763272): United Services Automobile Association

2023 OCT 05 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Billman, Bradly Jay (Celina, TX, US), Erickson, Jennifer Hunt (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on April 28, 2021, was published online on September 19, 2023, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11763272 is assigned to United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “The present disclosure relates generally to systems and methods for authenticating tokenized and/or dynamic physical checks.

“Checks typically provide a safe and convenient method for an individual such as a payor to transfer funds to a payee. To use a check, the individual usually opens a checking account, or other similar account, at a financial institution and deposits funds, which are then available for later withdrawal. To transfer funds with a check, the payor usually designates a payee and an amount payable on the check. In addition, the payor often signs the check. Once the check has been signed, it is usually deemed negotiable, meaning the check may be validly transferred to the payee upon delivery. By signing and transferring the check to the payee, the payor authorizes funds to be withdrawn from the payor’s account on behalf of the payee. Certain types of checks are backed by the issuing bank. Accordingly, they may be preferred for transactions in which the payor/payee wish to have additional levels of protection.

“This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “One or more specific embodiments will be described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, not all features of an actual implementation are described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers’ specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.

“When introducing elements of various embodiments of the present disclosure, the articles “a,” “an,” and “the” are intended to mean that there are one or more of the elements. The terms “comprising,” “including,” and “having” are intended to be inclusive and mean that there may be additional elements other than the listed elements. Additionally, it should be understood that references to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” of the present disclosure are not intended to be interpreted as excluding the existence of additional embodiments that also incorporate the recited features.

“As used herein, the terms “automatic” and “automatically” may refer to actions that are performed by a computing device or computing system (e.g., of one or more computing devices) without human intervention. For example, automatically performed functions may be performed by computing devices or systems based solely on data stored on and/or received by the computing devices or systems despite the fact that no human users have prompted the computing devices or systems to perform such functions. As but one non-limiting example, the computing devices or systems may make decisions and/or initiate other functions based solely on the decisions made by the computing devices or systems, regardless of any other inputs relating to the decisions.

“As used herein, the terms “real time” and substantially real time” may refer to actions that are performed substantially simultaneously with other actions, without any human-perceptible delay between the actions. For example, two functions performed in substantially real time occur within seconds (or even within milliseconds) of each other. As but one non-limiting example, two functions performed in substantially real time occur within 1 second, within 0.1 second, within 0.01 second, and so forth, of each other.

“As used herein, the term “application” may refer to one or more computing modules, programs, processes, workloads, threads, and/or computing instructions executed by a computing system. Example embodiments of an application include software modules, software objects, software instances, and/or other types of executable code.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method, comprising: identifying, using at least one processor, a dynamic authentication code of a physical check, wherein the dynamic authentication code comprises a single use tokenized version of an account number associated with the physical check; automatically authenticating, using the at least one processor, the physical check based at least in part on the identified dynamic authentication code; and automatically authorizing, using the at least one processor, a transfer of funds in response to the authentication of the physical check.

“2. The method of claim 1, comprising activating the dynamic authentication code by activating circuitry of the physical check.

“3. The method of claim 2, comprising deactivating the dynamic authentication code by deactivating the circuitry of the physical check after a period of time.

“4. The method of claim 3, wherein deactivating the dynamic authentication code comprises causing the dynamic authentication code to become invisible.

“5. The method of claim 3, wherein the period of time is determined by a life of a battery of the physical check that activates the circuitry of the physical check.

“6. The method of claim 2, comprising activating the circuitry of the physical check based at least in part on moisture applied to a battery of the physical check.

“7. The method of claim 2, wherein activating the dynamic authentication code comprises displaying the dynamic authentication code via a display device of the physical check.

“8. The method of claim 2, comprising activating color coding of the dynamic authentication code using the circuitry of the physical check.

“9. The method of claim 2, comprising activating the circuitry of the physical check based at least in part on a control signal received from a computing device.

“10. The method of claim 9, wherein the dynamic authentication code is determined using an application executed by the computing device.

“11. The method of claim 9, comprising: activating the dynamic authentication code by providing inductance to the circuitry of the physical check from the computing device; and deactivating the dynamic authentication code by discontinuing the induction provided to the circuitry of the physical check from the computing device.

“12. The method of claim 9, wherein activating the dynamic authentication code comprises sending a control signal from the computing device to the circuitry of the physical check to cause the dynamic authentication code to become visible.

“13. The method of claim 9, comprising destroying a display device of the physical check in response to an invalid attempt to activate the dynamic authentication code using the computing device.

“14. A physical check, comprising: circuitry configured to be activated to activate a dynamic authentication code of the physical check, wherein the dynamic authentication code comprises a single use tokenized version of an account number associated with the physical check, and wherein the dynamic authentication code is configured to uniquely identify the physical check and is used to authorize a transfer of funds in response to authentication of the physical check.

“15. The physical check of claim 14, wherein the circuitry is configured to be deactivated after a period of time to deactivate the dynamic authentication code.

“16. The physical check of claim 14, wherein the circuitry of the physical check is configured to be activated based at least in part on moisture applied to a battery of the physical check.

“17. The physical check of claim 14, comprising a display device, wherein the circuitry of the physical check is configured to display the dynamic authentication code via the display device of the physical check.

“18. The physical check of claim 14, wherein the circuitry of the physical check is configured to activate color coding of the dynamic authentication code.

“19. A physical check authentication system, comprising: a physical check comprising a display device and circuitry, wherein the circuitry is configured to display a dynamic authentication code via the display device in response to activation of the circuitry; and an authenticator comprising at least one processor configured to read the dynamic authentication code from the display device, and to authorize a transfer of funds in response to authentication of the physical check.

“20. The physical check authentication system of claim 19, wherein the dynamic authentication code comprises a single use tokenized version of an account number associated with the physical check.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Billman, Bradly Jay. Systems and methods for using tokenized and dynamic physical checks. U.S. Patent Number 11763272, filed April 28, 2021, and published online on September 19, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11763272)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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