ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., January 9, 2024—SKUx, a leader in digital instant payments, is pleased to announce that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted SKUx two patents, No. 11,288,697 (the ‘697 patent) and No. 11,615,435 (the ‘435 patent), for item-level payments processing technology. SKUx’s innovative payments platform, SKUPay® provides merchants with new tools for enhancing consumer experience and product level promotions. This adds to a product suite of capabilities for merchant payment innovations that combine first-party data, offer serialization, mobile delivery, and distributed ledger technology, providing new opportunities for enhancing consumer engagement.
The ‘697 patent covers the issuance of item-level promotional offers and payments without requiring a merchant’s point-of-sale system to communicate externally to accomplish adjudication, the process of validating a purchase transaction’s eligibility. An example of a fast-growing market requiring item-level adjudication at the point of sale is the U.S. healthy benefits market. Based on analysis of government records, it is estimated to have reached $200 billion in 2023.1
The ‘435 patent is directed towards facilitating real-time integration of promotional offers such as coupons, coupon codes, gift cards, and the like, into a customer relationship management system or process. For example, payments are a valuable proactive customer engagement tool for promotional and customer service purposes. The individualized promotions are serialized in a way that facilitates real-time tracking of the issuance, redemption, and corresponding insights gained. This capability enables a new enhanced customer experience for consumer package goods rebates, which volume is expected to reach ~$1 BN by 2026, of which an estimated 50% will be redeemed to gift cards.1
The breakthrough technology addresses the critical need for an improved merchant item-level payment acceptance process as well as the rapid shift towards consumer adoption of mobile payments and digital wallet stored value, in a changing retail environment quickly moving towards real-time payments and Web3. Partnered with Hedera Hashgraph, the multi-patented SKUx solution incorporates a one-way cryptographic signature, the end result of which provides a zero knowledge proof (ZKP), further mitigating payment fraud.
“These patents and several pending patents demonstrate our commitment to developing digital payments innovations benefiting merchants and their valued partners.” said Guy Berg, Senior Vice President of the SKUPay Network. “Merchants don’t want to share basket information with third parties, and we’re excited to provide a solution that eliminates that need and simultaneously lowers their acceptance costs.”
1 (Oliver Wyman, SKUx 2023)
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