ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 1 -- United States Patent no. 12,726,363, issued on Sept. 1.

"System, method, product, and apparatus for autonomous transaction initiation via unprompted machine-readable signals" was invented by Eric Schneider (Hallandale Beach, Fla.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A mobile computing device, an electronic receiving device, and a system for autonomous, unprompted transaction initiation are disclosed. The mobile initiator is configured to generate a signed data payload containing a public key and selectable data attributes, outputting them as a machine-readable signal. Crucially, this signal is initiated by the mobile device independently of any prior data-modulated signa...