ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,354,078, issued on July 8, was assigned to Block Inc. (Oakland, Calif.).
"Systems and methods for communicating with NFC readers" was invented by Emad Bidari (Toronto), Mani Razaghi Kashani (Palo Alto, Calif.), Anthony Newpower (Edwards, Colo.) and Abdullah Yeaser (San Francisco).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A mobile NFC payment reader, such as a smartphone or tablet, has a casing for protecting the reader from damage. The casing also includes circuitry having at least two NFC antennas that are electrically coupled to each other and capable of wireless communication with an NFC antenna of the reader. One of the casing's antennas is posit...