ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 7 -- United States Patent no. 12,673,259, issued on July 7, was assigned to Verizon Patent and Licensing Inc. (Basking Ridge, N.J.).

"Systems and methods for enabling an avatar from an application to visit another application" was invented by Andrew Roger Katsikapes (Port Hadlock, Wash.), Zachary Drossman (New York) and Christian Guirnalda (Cranbury, N.J.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A device may authenticate a first application provided to a first client and a second application provided to a second client. The device may receive a communication initiated by the first client via the first application, and may provide the communication to the second application. The de...