US Patent Issued to HITACHI on May 20 for "Electronic payment system and electronic payment method" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,307,441, issued on May 20, was assigned to HITACHI LTD. (Tokyo).

"Electronic payment system and electronic payment method" was invented by Suguru Nagahora (Yokohama, Japan), Nishio Yamada (Tokyo), Yasunori Hashimoto (Tokyo), Tomokazu Sakai (Tokyo) and Kaiho Fukuchi (Tokyo).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A transaction has: lock release information; and a lock release condition. A first transaction has a record with a plurality of successive lock release conditions. A lock release condition of the first transaction includes public key information pertaining to an electronic signature different from the electronic signature of the issuer of ...