ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,567,094, issued on March 3, was assigned to Malikie Innovations Ltd. (Dublin).

"Automatic distribution of licenses for a third-party service operating in association with a licensed first-party service" was invented by Andrew Christopher Smith (Ancaster, Canada) and Richard Eric Nicolaisen (Waterloo, Canada).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A first-party vendor provides a licensed first-party service on one or more electronic devices, the first-party service associated with a licensed third-party service provided by a third-party vendor on the electronic devices. When a customer purchases a first-party license for the first-party service, t...