ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,271,936, issued on April 8, was assigned to Wells Fargo Bank N.A. (San Francisco).
"Electronic layaway" was invented by Darren M. Goetz (Salinas, Calif.), Dennis E. Montenegro (Concord, Calif.), Alicia Y. Moore (San Ramon, Calif.) and Timothy R. Ward (Mesa, Ariz.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A computing system includes a database and at least one processor. The at least one processor is configured to: receive, from an entity computing system, a request related to a layaway transaction of a user; and, in response to receiving the request, automatically facilitate initiation of a layaway deposit account by associating the layaway deposit...