ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 14 -- United States Patent no. 12,681,842, issued on July 14, was assigned to Visa International Service Association (San Francisco).

"Automatic portable device testing method and system" was invented by Yuexi Chen (Foster City, Calif.), Kiat Chun Tan (Singapore), Arlene Yap Bernas (Singapore) and Alexandre Pierre (San Mateo, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Systems and methods of testing portable access devices are described. One method includes receiving, by a reader controller, a configuration file configuration data and providing, by the reader controller, a configuration command associated with configuration data to an access application on an access device. Th...