ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 25 -- United States Patent no. 12,339,996, issued on June 24, was assigned to MasterCard International Inc. (Purchase, N.Y.).
"Retrieving hidden digital identifier" was invented by James Noe (West Wickham, Great Britain) and John Tierney (Wirral, Great Britain).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method of providing access to securely held data is provided. A user interacts with the service provider to obtain access to a service by using a device to provide a digital identifier to the service provider, without the digital identifier being made known to the user. At a later date the user wishes to retrieve securely stored data relating to their use of the service. However, be...