ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,314,913, issued on May 27.
"Mobile payment and product selection modules for vending machines" was invented by Kishore Swaminathan (Willowbrook, Ill.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Described herein are components or modules that enable vending machines to operate without the need for customer-facing product selection and/or customer-facing payment devices. The described components can be used in new vending machines designed without such devices as well as in retrofitting traditional vending machines to bypass such devices. With the described components, vending machines can outsource product selection and/or payment to their customers' ...