ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,541,758, issued on Feb. 3, was assigned to Avast Software s.r.o. (Prague).

"Systems and methods for transacting over a network" was invented by Drummond Reed (Seattle), Brent Zundel (American Fork, Utah), Martin Mesrsmid (Prague) and Allan Thomson (Pleasanton, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Systems and methods for transacting over a network. A first agent and a second agent are provided. The second agent is operable to transact with a third agent for use of a network-enabled service based on a first transaction policy from a fourth agent, the third agent enabled to communicate with a fifth agent. The first agent is operable to comm...