The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published the patent, which describes the method for processing Bitcoin payment via text messages, on August 7.
The patent explains the SMS based Bitcoin transaction processing system as follows:
“The method includes receiving, by a payment service, a payment text message comprising a payment amount and an identifier of a payee mobile device, validating the payment text message based on a payer balance of a virtual payer account maintained by the payment service for the payer, creating, by the payment service and in response to the payment text message, a virtual payee account based on the identifier of the payee mobile device, transferring, in response to creating the virtual payee account, the payment amount from the virtual payer account to the virtual payee account, and sending, by the payment service to the payee mobile device, a notification text message to notify the payee regarding a payee balance of the virtual payee account, wherein the payee balance is determined based at least on the payment amount.”
Intuit filed the patent on 13 June 2014 – more or less at the time it launched a PayByCoin facility for its cloud-based accounting software QuickBooks Online. The free add-on facility can be used by small businesses which are dependent on QuickBooks Online for the creation of electronic payable invoices. The facility enables payment by Bitcoin. Notably, Bill Harris, one of former CEO of Intuit, had called Bitcoin a ‘scam’ in April 2018.