Granted Patent B2

US 12,632,864 · App. 17/525,786 · Granted May 19, 2026

Inventor: Jeremy Mawson (Elanora, AU)

Assignee: Block, Inc.

G06Q20/4014G06Q20/065G06Q20/0855G06Q20/381

Abstract

Claims (76)

1 . A method comprising:

storing, by a first payment system, identifiers in a data store maintained by the first payment system, wherein each identifier comprises a payment proxy used in lieu of financial information in association with payments between users, wherein each identifier is associated with a single user, wherein each identifier uniquely identifies user accounts of a plurality of payment systems that are associated with the respective single user, wherein the plurality of payment systems are associated with different entities, and wherein the data store serves as a source of truth to avoid duplication of the identifiers across multiple payment systems;

receiving, by the first payment system and from a second payment system, an intent to register an identifier with the first payment system, wherein the identifier is associated with an account of a user on the second payment system;

determining, by the first payment system, availability of the identifier based on determining whether the identifier (i) already exists in the data store and is not available or (ii) does not already exist in the data store and is available;

based on a determination that the identifier is available:

requesting, by the first payment system and from the second payment system, a token that uniquely identifies the account of the user on the second payment system;

mapping, by the first payment system and in the data store maintained by the first payment system, the token to the identifier;

receiving, by the first payment system, a payment request wherein the identifier is used as the payment proxy in lieu of the financial information of the user;

determining, by the first payment system and based at least in part on parsing the payment request to identify the identifier, that the token is mapped to the identifier; and

facilitating, after determining that the token is mapped to the identifier and by the first payment system, processing of a payment associated with the payment request through the second payment system using the token, wherein the token is used as a substitute for stored financial information of the user on the second payment system; and

based on a determination that the identifier is not available:

sending a request to a centralized identifier registrar, for one or more recommended unique identifiers, wherein the request includes the identifier; and

receiving, from the centralized identifier registrar, the one or more recommended unique identifiers, wherein the one or more recommended unique identifiers correspond to one or more embeddings that are near the embedding for the identifier in embedding space, wherein distance in the embedding space between two embeddings is inversely related to similarity of identifiers from which the two embeddings are generated, and wherein the centralized identifier registrar generates the one or more recommended unique identifiers based on similarity of at least one of a frequency of co-usage of words in the identifiers, a replacement-level usage of words in the identifiers in a language corpus, and a combination thereof.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the centralized identifier register generates the one or more recommended unique identifiers from one or more pre-generated unique identifiers and the one or more embeddings in the embedding space include corresponding embeddings generated from the one or more pre-generated unique identifiers.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the user is a first user, the payment request is received from a user electronic device of a second user, and facilitating processing of the payment associated with the payment request through the second payment system using the token comprises:

sending, by the first payment system, the token and information for the payment request to the second payment system;

receiving, by the first payment system, identifying information for the account of the first user from the second payment system; and

initiating, by the first payment system, a transaction between the account of the first user and an account of the second user based at least in part on the identifying information, wherein based at least in part on initiating the transaction, the first payment system determines whether a currency conversion is necessary to complete the transaction.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:

the data store maintained by the first payment system is a first instance of an identifier ledger;

the second payment system maintains a second instance of the identifier ledger;

mapping the token to the identifier is associated with an update to the first instance of the identifier ledger; and

the first payment system propagates the update from the first instance of the identifier ledger to the second instance of the identifier ledger.

5 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

providing the one or more recommended unique identifiers to the user;

receiving a selection of one of the one or more recommended unique identifiers from the user; and

mapping, by the first payment system and in the data store maintained by the first payment system, the token that uniquely identifies the account of the user on the second payment system to the selected unique identifier.

6 . A method comprising:

storing, by a computing system of a first service provider that is part of a federated system of payment systems, identifiers in a data store maintained by the first service provider, wherein each identifier comprises a payment proxy used in lieu of financial information in association with payments between users, wherein each identifier is associated with a respective single user, wherein each identifier uniquely identifies user accounts of a plurality of payment systems of the federated system that are associated with the respective single user, wherein the plurality of payment systems are associated with different entities of the federated system, and wherein the data store serves as a source of truth to avoid duplication of the identifiers across multiple payment systems;

receiving, by the computing system and from at least one second service provider that is part of the federated system, an intent to register a unique identifier with the first service provider;

determining, by the computing system, availability of the unique identifier based at least in part on determining whether the unique identifier (i) already exists in the data store and is not available or (ii) does not already exist in the data store and is available;

based at least in part on a determination that the unique identifier is available, mapping, by the computing system and in the data store maintained by the computing system, the unique identifier with a respective token that uniquely identifies an account of the respective single user associated with each service provider that is part of the federated system, wherein each respective token is provided by an associated service provider of the federated system, wherein each respective token is used as a substitute for stored financial information of the respective single user on an associated service provider of the federated system, wherein subsequent to the mapping, the unique identifier is usable as the payment proxy in lieu of personal data associated with the respective single user on each service provider that is part of the federated system; and

based at least in part on a determination that the unique identifier is not available:

providing, by the computing system, the identifier as input to an embedding model of the first service provider; and

receiving, from the embedding model, one or more recommended unique identifiers, wherein the one or more recommended unique identifiers correspond to one or more embeddings that are near the embedding for the identifier in embedding space, wherein distance in the embedding space between two embeddings is inversely related to similarity of identifiers from which the two embeddings are generated, and wherein the embedding model generates the one or more recommended unique identifiers based on similarity of at least one of a frequency of co-usage of words in the identifiers, a replacement-level usage of words in the identifiers in a language corpus, and a combination thereof.

7 . The method of claim 6 , further comprising, prior to determining availability of the unique identifier:

receiving, from the at least one second service provider, another unique identifier associated with the account of the respective single user associated with the at least one second service provider;

based at least in part on a determination that the other unique identifier is associated with another user in the data store maintained by the computing system, notifying the at least one second service provider that the other unique identifier is not available; and

requesting, by the computing system and from the at least one second service provider, a replacement unique identifier to use in place of the other unique identifier, wherein the unique identifier is the replacement unique identifier.

8 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the embedding model generates the one or more recommended unique identifiers from one or more pre-generated unique identifiers and the one or more embeddings in the embedding space include corresponding embeddings generated from of the one or more pre-generated unique identifiers.

9 . The method of claim 6 , wherein based at least in part on a determination that the unique identifier already exists in the data store, the methods further comprise:

based at least in part on the determination that the other unique identifier is not available, temporarily reserving the one or more recommended unique identifiers for registration; and

releasing one or more temporary reservations of the one or more recommended unique identifiers based on receiving the intent to register the unique identifier.

10 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the at least one second service provider is at least one of a social media service, a media sharing service, a livestreaming service, or a payment service.

11 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the computing system is a centralized identifier registrar and the data store maintained by the computing system is a centralized identifier data store.

12 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the data store maintained by the computing system is a first instance of a unique identifier ledger, wherein the at least one second service provider maintains a second instance of the unique identifier ledger.

13 . The method of claim 12 , wherein mapping the unique identifier with the account of the respective single user associated with each service provider that is part of the federated system is associated with an update to the first instance of the identifier ledger, and wherein the computing system propagates the update from the first instance of the identifier ledger to the second instance of the identifier ledger.

14 . The method of claim 6 , further comprising:

receiving a payment request including the unique identifier from another user; and

facilitating processing of a payment associated with the payment request.

15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein:

the payment request is received from a third service provider that is part of the federated system, and

facilitating processing of the payment associated with the payment request comprises providing an identifier for the at least one second service provider to the third service provider.

16 . The method of claim 6 , further comprising:

requesting, by the computing system and from one or more of the service providers that are part of the federated system, the respective token associated with the account of the respective user associated with the one or more of the service providers; and

mapping, by the computing system and in the data store maintained by the computing system, one or more tokens received from the one or more of the service providers to the unique identifier, wherein the one or more tokens are usable for identifying the account of the respective single user associated with the one or more service providers.

17 . The method of claim 16 , further comprising:

receiving, by the computing system and from a second service provider, a request associated with an action including the unique identifier, wherein the unique identifier is provided in lieu of personal data associated with the respective single user;

identifying, by the computing system, the respective token associated with the account of the respective single user associated with the second service provider that is mapped to the unique identifier by querying the data store using the unique identifier received in the request; and

initiating, by the computing system and using the respective token, the action associated with the request through the first service provider or the second service provider.

18 . A computing system of a first service provider that is part of a federated system, the computing system comprising:

one or more processors;

a data store coupled to the one or more processors; and

one or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media coupled to the one or more of the processors and comprising instructions operable when executed by one or more of the processors to cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:

storing, in the data store, identifiers, wherein each identifier comprises a payment proxy used in lieu of financial information in association with payments between users, wherein each identifier is associated with a respective single user, wherein each identifier uniquely identifies user accounts of a plurality of payment systems of the federated system, wherein the plurality of payment systems are associated with different entities of the federated system that are associated with the respective single user, and wherein the data store serves as a source of truth to avoid duplication of the identifiers across on multiple payment systems;

receiving, by the computing system and from at least one second service provider that is part of the federated system, an intent to register a unique identifier with the first service provider;

determining, by the computing system, availability of the unique identifier based at least in part on determining whether the unique identifier (i) already exists in the data store and is not available or (ii) does not already exist in the data store and is available;

based at least in part on a determination that the unique identifier is available, mapping, by the computing system and in the data store, the unique identifier with a respective token that uniquely identifies an account of the respective single user associated with each service provider that is part of the federated system, wherein each respective token is provided by an associated service provider of the federated system, wherein each respective token is used as a substitute for stored financial information of the respective single user on an associated service provider of the federated system, wherein subsequent to the mapping, the unique identifier is usable as the payment proxy in lieu of the personal data associated with the respective single user on each service provider that is part of the federated system;

based at least in part on a determination that the unique identifier is not available:

providing, by the computing system, the identifier as input to an embedding model of the first service provider; and

receiving, from the embedding model, one or more recommended unique identifiers, wherein the one or more recommended unique identifiers correspond to one or more embeddings that are near the embedding for the identifier in embedding space, wherein distance in the embedding space between two embeddings is inversely related to similarity of identifiers from which the two embeddings are generated, and wherein the embedding model generates the one or more recommended unique identifiers based on similarity of at least one of a frequency of co-usage of words in the identifiers, a replacement-level usage of words in the identifiers in a language corpus, and a combination thereof.

19 . The computing system of claim 18 , wherein the instructions are further operable when executed by one or more of the processors to cause the computing system to perform further operations comprising, prior to determining availability of the unique identifier:

receiving, from the at least one service provider, another unique identifier associated with the account of the respective single user associated with the at least one second service provider;

based at least in part on a determination that the other unique identifier is associated with another user in the data store, notifying the at least one second service provider that the other unique identifier is not available; and

requesting, by the computing system and from the at least one second service provider, a replacement unique identifier to use in place of the other unique identifier, wherein the unique identifier is the replacement unique identifier.

20 . The computing system of claim 18 , wherein the embedding model generates the one or more recommended unique identifiers from one or more pre-generated unique identifiers and the one or more embeddings in the embedding space includes corresponding embeddings generated from the one or more pre-generated unique identifiers.

Assignments (2)

Continuity (2)

References Cited (12)