Ok. The patent isn’t entirely mine. My name is on it though, along with some other really smart folks.

Ten years ago, I worked at Barclaycard. While I was working there, we applied for a patent. That patent was granted last month (on August 23rd, 2022).

I knew patent applications took a while, but I never thought it would be ten years.

What the patent describes is a mechanism for credit card users to view some account details (balance, points, etc) without logging into their accounts. This is the kind of information many users want to see at a glance. If you want the nitty-gritty details, read the patent application.

We developed the feature in a short amount of time. I believe it took us two weeks to build and ship the idea. I could be wrong here, this was ten years ago.

It was a neat experience for me. A handful of us worked very closely in order to design, develop and then correctly document the entire process. It was truly a team effort.

This feature is still being used in the Barclaycard app today. Check out the screenshot above.

I’m not sure anyone who worked on this feature (and patent) still works for Barclaycard.

We worked on a lot of neat features while working at Barclaycard. This is the only one we submitted a patent for. I’m glad it finally came through.