ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,289,501, issued on April 29, was assigned to DWANGO Co. LTD. (Japan).

"Management server, user terminal, gift system, and information processing method" was invented by Takashi Kojima (Tokyo) and Kazuomi Niwa (Tokyo).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A gift system comprising a control server for controlling a gift giving request submitted by a user in a live performance or live broadcast, and a user terminal that is held by the user. The control server comprises: a receiving portion for receiving a gift giving request that is transmitted in response to a user operation; an evaluating portion for evaluating whether to accept the gift giving re...