Patented Secure Digital Transport (SDT) architecture.
SecureMFP runs on Secure Digital Transport, a patented stateless document transfer architecture invented and operated by Botdoc. Seven granted patents across the United States, the European Union (including the United Kingdom via the EPC), Canada, Australia, Japan, and India protect the no-recipient-login transport pattern, the stateless transit layer, and the in-line per-document audit chain.
What Secure Digital Transport (SDT) is and why it has a patent
Secure Digital Transport is a document transfer architecture that moves files from sender to recipient without requiring the recipient to log in, create an account, or join a portal. The transport is end-to-end encrypted, stateless at the transit layer, and produces an in-line per-document audit chain. SDT is the technology layer underneath SecureMFP, the SDT API, Edward Jones SDX, the Cloud Maven Secure File Transport for Salesforce, and other applications. The patent estate exists because the architecture was a non-obvious departure from secure email gateways, portal-based file sharing, and managed file transfer at the time of the original 2016 filings. The transport model, the absence of a recipient login step, and the audit-chain mechanism each contributed to the patentability finding. SecureMFP inherits the protection through the underlying engine.
The original United States patent (10,469,463) and what it protects
United States Patent 10,469,463 was granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on November 5, 2019 after a multi-year examination cycle that began with the 2016 priority filings. The patent covers the foundational network communication method that underpins SDT. The claims describe the no-recipient-login document transfer flow, the encrypted transit envelope, the recipient verification sequence without account creation, and the in-line audit-chain mechanism. The patent established the legal protection for the core invention that makes SecureMFP distinct from secure email, portal file sharing, and managed file transfer. Every scan-to-email transmission a SecureMFP gateway routes through SDT inherits the protection of the 10,469,463 claims at the transport layer. The patent term runs through the standard United States patent expiration window from the priority filing date.
Patent portfolio expansion: second US patent and global jurisdictions
The original 10,469,463 was the first granted SDT patent and not the last. A continuation, United States Patent 10,999,259, was granted on May 4, 2021 with additional claims on the recipient verification sequence and the audit-chain integration with sender-side workflows. The international expansion ran in parallel through the Patent Cooperation Treaty national-phase pathways. Japan granted 6978498 on November 15, 2021. Australia followed with 2017338913 on April 7, 2022. India granted 535215 on April 26, 2024. The European Patent Office granted 3510745 on July 3, 2025, published in EP Bulletin 25/31 on July 30, 2025. Canada completed the North American estate in 2025 with patent 3,038,119 following the Notice of Allowance issued on June 30, 2025. The portfolio now stands at seven granted patents across six jurisdictions covering the same SDT invention family.
The six jurisdictions: US, EU, UK via EPC, Canada, Australia, Japan, India
The seven granted patents cover six legal jurisdictions and the major OECD commercial markets. The United States estate is two patents. The European Patent 3510745 provides coverage across European Patent Convention member states. The EPC is a separate treaty from the European Union, so the United Kingdom remains an EPC member after Brexit and is covered through the validated EP grant. Canada 3,038,119 completes the North American estate. The table below lists the granted numbers and dates.
| Jurisdiction | Patent number | Grant date |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 10,469,463 | November 5, 2019 |
| United States (continuation) | 10,999,259 | May 4, 2021 |
| Japan | 6978498 | November 15, 2021 |
| Australia | 2017338913 | April 7, 2022 |
| India | 535215 | April 26, 2024 |
| European Union (incl. UK via EPC) | 3510745 | July 3, 2025 (EP Bulletin 25/31, July 30, 2025) |
| Canada | 3,038,119 | 2025 (after June 30, 2025 Notice of Allowance) |
What the patent claims protect: stateless transfer, no-recipient-login, in-line audit chain
The SDT patent family protects three distinct architectural elements that, together, separate the invention from every adjacent category in the document-transport landscape. Stateless transfer means the transit layer holds no persistent copy of the payload after delivery acknowledgement, which eliminates the staging-server breach class affecting portal-based products. No-recipient-login transport means the recipient receives the file without creating an account, joining a portal, or installing software, which removes the largest friction layer in cross-organizational document delivery. The in-line per-document audit chain means chain-of-custody evidence is generated as the transport happens, not reconstructed later from server logs, which gives compliance examiners a primary audit record rather than a derived one. Each element is independently protected in the claims. Together they describe a transport-layer architecture that secure email, file portals, and managed file transfer do not match.
Why the patent estate matters for regulated buyers
Regulated buyers evaluating SecureMFP raise the patent question for two reasons that vendor due diligence and supply-chain risk review routinely cover. First, defensibility. Patent claims document that the technology is the firm's own invention rather than a wrapper around a third-party library, which matters when a chief information security officer presents the architecture to an audit committee or to a Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council examiner. Second, vendor continuity. A patented architecture from a small company would carry exit risk if the company exited the market, but the SDT engine has been operating commercially since 2014, and the patent estate is now defensively complete across the six largest English-language and OECD markets. The combination of operating history, granted-patent depth, and jurisdictional spread changes the supply-chain risk conversation from speculative to documented across procurement, legal, and security review.
What Secure Digital Transport means and what the patents cover
What does Secure Digital Transport (SDT) mean?
Secure Digital Transport is a patented document transfer architecture that moves files from sender to recipient without requiring the recipient to log in, create an account, or join a portal. The transport is end-to-end encrypted, stateless at the transit layer, and produces an in-line per-document audit chain. It is the technology layer underneath SecureMFP, the SDT API, and other applications built on the same engine.
What do the SDT patents actually protect?
The claims cover three architectural elements that distinguish SDT from secure email, portal-based file sharing, and managed file transfer. First, stateless transfer at the transit layer, with no persistent server-side copy. Second, no-recipient-login transport, where the recipient receives a file without creating an account. Third, in-line per-document audit chain, where chain-of-custody evidence is generated as the transport occurs rather than reconstructed later from logs.
Which patents Botdoc holds and where they are filed
Which patents does Botdoc hold for SDT?
Seven granted patents across six jurisdictions. United States 10,469,463 (Nov 2019) and 10,999,259 (May 2021). Japan 6978498 (Nov 2021). Australia 2017338913 (Apr 2022). India 535215 (Apr 2024). European Patent 3510745 (Jul 2025, EP Bulletin 25/31), providing coverage across European Patent Convention member states including the United Kingdom. Canada 3,038,119 (2025, following the June 30, 2025 Notice of Allowance).
Does the European Patent cover the United Kingdom after Brexit?
Yes. The European Patent Convention is a separate treaty from the European Union. The United Kingdom remains an EPC member state after Brexit. European Patent 3510745, validated through the EPO, provides patent protection in EPC member states including the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and other validated jurisdictions.
How the estate plays in vendor due diligence and procurement
Why does the patent estate matter to a regulated buyer?
Two reasons. First, defensibility. Regulated buyers can reference patented core architecture during vendor due diligence, supply-chain risk review, and audit-firm scrutiny. Patents document that the technology is the firm's own and not a wrapper around a third-party library. Second, vendor lock-in concerns are different. A patented architecture from a small company carries risk if the company exits the market. Botdoc has been operating the engine commercially since 2014 and the patent estate is now defensively complete across the six largest English-language and OECD markets.
How does the SDT patent family relate to SecureMFP specifically?
SecureMFP is an application built on top of the patented SDT engine. The multifunction printer gateway intercepts scan-to-email, scan-to-folder, and fax-to-email transmissions and routes them through SDT instead of plaintext SMTP. The audit chain compliance examiners reference is the patented per-document chain-of-custody mechanism inherited from the SDT layer.
How licensing, the SDT API, and Built-on-SDT partnerships work
The SDT engine reaches the world through three channels. SecureMFP for the multifunction printer scan-to-email replacement workflow. The SDT API for developer-level integration into custom applications. Built-on-SDT applications produced by named partners on platforms like Salesforce. Each channel sits on the same patented transport and inherits the seven-patent estate, the in-line audit chain, and the no-recipient-login transfer pattern. Patent licensing is handled through Botdoc directly for institutional buyers with bespoke integration needs.
Are there patent licensing or third-party-integration opportunities?
Yes. The SDT engine is available as a developer API and through Third Party Integrations on platforms such as Salesforce. Patent licensing inquiries are handled through Botdoc directly. Application-level partnerships, including Edward Jones SDX and the Cloud Maven Secure File Transport for Salesforce, are documented as Built-on-SDT examples. Inquiries originating from regulated industries should reach a SecureMFP specialist through the demo form on this site.
Where SDT shows up in the compliance shelf
The patented SDT architecture is the technical answer underneath each regulation on the compliance shelf. The encrypted stateless transport and audit chain protected by the seven granted patents are the evidence surfaces a chief information security officer presents during an FFIEC IT exam, an HHS Office for Civil Rights review, or a SOC 2 Type II audit. The compare page is adjacent reading for buyers running a head-to-head evaluation.
See how SecureMFP compares to PaperCut, uniFLOW, and Kofax →
Talk to a SecureMFP specialist about the SDT architecture
A SecureMFP specialist will walk through the SDT transport architecture, the patent estate, the audit-chain evidence schema, and the deployment model for your multifunction printer fleet. Thirty minutes is the standard slot. The walkthrough covers the no-recipient-login transport, the stateless transit layer, the in-line audit chain, and the due diligence material your procurement and security teams can register in the vendor file. SecureMFP runs on the patented engine that powers the SDT API and Built-on-SDT applications. The engine has been operating commercially since 2014, and the estate is defensively complete across the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, and India.