OVE Touch & Go patent clears way for fingerprint payments rollout

OVE Touch & Go has been awarded the last of three U.S. utility patents, completing intellectual property protection for its end‑to‑end fingerprint biometric payment and identification system.

The company confirmed U.S. Utility Patent Nos. 11,514,454 and 11,961,081 and 12,462,257 have now been granted. The last of the three was published last week. The patents cover the full stack of OVE’s solution including hardware at the point of sale through to cloud components, which enable users to authenticate and pay using a fingerprint rather than cards or phones.

The three patents describe a “payment system using customer’s fingerprints” based on the capture of biometrics at a point of sale. After enrollment, the fingerprint data is verified in a backend server, but also wireless transmitted to the user’s device, and from there to a server to be stored for subsequent authentication during online purchases. Those online purchases would be made through an account, which may require a government ID scan and selfie biometrics comparison to establish. After that, authentication for purchases and consent to share data would be performed using fingerprint biometrics.

OVE began developing the system three and a half years ago. The young startup opted to file patent applications early, a decision the company says was pivotal to its strategy. OVE is now ready to bring what it calls the complete fingerprint payment and identification system to market.

“At the time, it was a big risk to invest our first capital in something we weren’t sure we’d ever get,” Caio Buchalla, co-founder and CEO, said on LinkedIn. “But after doing research with lawyers, we decided to move forward, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions we made.”

In addition to the U.S. patents, OVE has been granted patents in Brazil and India. Previously, the company turned to crowdfunding platform StartEngine to commercialize its biometric retail payment technology and fingerprint point-of-sale (POS) terminals. Buchalla told Biometric Update that he was targeting $3 million for 15 percent of the company’s common stock at the time.

Article Topics

biometric identification  |  biometric payments  |  biometrics  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  OVE Touch & Go  |  patents  |  research and development