ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,254,485, issued on March 18, was assigned to TRANSFORM SR BRANDS LLC (Hoffman Estates, Ill.).

"Systems and methods for distributing customizable and shareable tiered offers" was invented by Eran Avigdor Lendner (Chicago), Prashant Kumar (Palatine, Ill.), Mark Seth Bonchek (Weston, Mass.), Vanina Delobelle Chateau-Artaud (St. Charles, Ill.), Justin Marcus Cassey (Barrington, Ill.) and Ilona Piwko (Des Plaines, Ill.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Offers are distributed by providing a plurality of offers to a first user and directing the first user to distribute the offers to selected additional users. The plurality of offers may be custom...