ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 14 -- United States Patent no. 12,684,091, issued on July 14, was assigned to WHATNOT INC. (San Francisco).

"Digital item management and randomization techniques in an online platform" was invented by Ryan Rhodes (Culver City, Calif.), Alexander Russell (Austin, Texas), Alexander Chase (Los Angeles) and Kyle McDowell (San Diego).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A mobile software application by which a user may stream, from a unique host user profile associated with the user, an online session being associated with one or more items available for sale from the user (e.g., available for auction). One or more graphical user interfaces of the application enable mobile devices o...