Intuit an Auditing company has been granted a patent for making Bitcoin payments through text message. This patent was reportedly filed on June 13, 2014, to US Patent Office.
The following statement from patent outlines on how the Bitcoin transactions are achieved by text messages.
“The method includes receiving, by a payment service from a payer mobile device of a payer, a payment text message comprising a payment amount and an identifier of a payee mobile device of a payee.”
On a basic level, the system will comprise of two users who wish to transact over their mobile phones. As mentioned in the above patent statement, the user willing to transfer is expected to initiate the payment with amount and identification of payee mobile.
After successfully placing the request, the user will be presented with two options for authentication purpose. The first option will be an unanswered voice call within a predetermined time period subsequent to receiving the payment text message and the second option will be One Time Password(OTP) to validate payee details.
Furthermore, the system will check whether payer has sufficient funds to complete the transaction. Also if the user doesn’t have a virtual account to transfer, the system will create one and then transfer amount. Eventually, the payee will be notified with a text message.
Incidentally, in 2014 Intuit has also partnered with BitPay for creating integrated Bitcoin payment platform through Quickbooks PayByCoin. Also its noteworthy, to mention the company’s interest in blockchain technology and in this regard, an Innovation Lab is built in San Fransisco.
Other Crypto Patents
Apart from Intuit, there are other players in the industry who have been granted crypto patents. Recently we saw a MasterCard patent which allows users to perform Bitcoin transactions over credit cards. Also as per statistics published by Bitcoin Patent Report, with a first-place secured by Bank of America and has around 45 patent within just 5 years. Popular companies like Alibaba and IBM on fourth, fifth places respectively.
What do you think of this Bitcoin Patents? Will Bitcoin be the next common mode of payment system? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
