US Patent Issued to Block on Nov. 3 for "Cross-merchant promotions" (California, New York Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,784,074, issued on Nov. 3, was assigned to Block Inc. (Oakland, Calif.).

"Cross-merchant promotions" was invented by Zachary Brock (San Francisco), John Ryan Crepezzi (San Francisco) and Bruce Bell (New York).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In examples, a payment service can identify a first merchant and a second merchant as complementary merchants based on transaction data associated with a plurality of merchants. First transaction data for a first transaction between a first merchant is received, which includes a payment card number. A payment can be processed and apportioned between the first merchant and a second merchant based on an ag...