Patent Issued for Automated inspection system and method (USPTO 11863865): United Services Automobile Association

2024 JAN 22 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Bartee, Matthew Ray (Mesa, AZ, US), Camarena, Scott Michael (Phoenix, AZ, US), Daly, Scott Evan (San Antonio, TX, US), Davis, Logan Thomas (Bozeman, MT, US), Gerber, Geoffrey Lee (Phoenix, AZ, US), Kelley, Martie Ann Gutshall (Buckeye, AZ, US), Ridley, Harold Joy (Chandler, AZ, US), Vanica, Danielle Elise Marie (Phoenix, AZ, US), filed on November 16, 2022, was published online on January 2, 2024, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11863865 is assigned to United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Documenting the state of a rental property, such as an apartment, prior to moving in can be a time-consuming and frustrating experience for tenants and landlords. Video documentation of the state of the apartment prior to move-in can be a way to establish near indisputable proof of the condition of the apartment. However, leaving this process to the tenant themselves, without assistance, presents several drawbacks, especially in the event of special provisions in the lease related to specific features of the rental property, such as appliances; outbuildings; or personal property belonging to the landlord stored on the property. Video footage captured by the tenant may not be sufficiently clear to establish the condition of the apartment; important features of the rental property may be left out of the footage; and such footage then needs to be stored in a way that is accessible to the tenant potentially many years after it was taken. Later, the tenant and landlord may waste time reviewing all of the footage just to find documentation of one particular feature of the property. Similar drawbacks apply to other means of documenting the state of a rental property, such as photos and audio descriptions, and, additionally, to documenting the state of other items that can be rented, such as cars, heavy equipment, hotel rooms, etc.

“There is a need in the art for a system and method that addresses the shortcomings discussed above.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In one aspect, a computer implemented method includes steps of receiving text of a lease for a rental property from a computing device, automatically analyzing the text, via a lease processing module, and identifying a lease feature described in the lease, and generating an instruction for a user to capture video of the rental property that includes the lease feature. The method also includes steps of sending the instruction to a guidance module of the computing device, receiving video of the rental property from the computing device, automatically analyzing a portion of the video, via an image processing module of the application, and identifying a video feature corresponding to the portion of the video. The method also includes steps of determining if the video feature matches the lease feature, and associating, in memory, the lease feature with the portion of the video when the video feature matches the lease feature.

“In another aspect, a method implemented by an application running on a mobile computing device includes steps of receiving text of a lease for a rental property, receiving a set of lease features identified in the text of the lease, guiding a user, via a guidance module, through the rental property, prompting the user, via the guidance module, to capture video for each lease feature in the set of lease features, and receiving video of the rental property. The method also includes steps of receiving a set of video features identified in the video, comparing the set of lease features and the set of video features to determine if there is at least one video feature in the set of video features corresponding to each lease feature in the set of lease features, and instructing the user, via the guidance module, to continue capturing video until the application has received at least one video feature for each lease feature in the set of lease features.

“In another aspect, a computing system includes a device processor and a non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions that are executable by the device processor. The computing system also includes an application including a guidance module configured to guide a user on an inspection of a rental property, an image processing module configured to receive video and identify a set of video features, an audio processing module configured to receive audio and identify a set of audio features, and a lease processing module configured to receive text from a lease and identify a set of lease features. The application is further configured to determine that each video feature in the set of video features is matched to at least one audio feature in the set of audio features or to at least one lease feature in the set of lease features.

“Other systems, methods, features, and advantages of the disclosure will be, or will become, apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art upon examination of the following figures and detailed description. It is intended that all such additional systems, methods, features, and advantages be included within this description and this summary, be within the scope of the disclosure, and be protected by the following claims.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer implemented method, comprising: receiving a lease for a property from a mobile device; deriving a set of lease features from the lease using natural language processing performed by a lease processing module; identifying a lease feature from the set of lease features; generating an instruction for a user of the mobile device to capture video of the property that includes the lease feature; sending the instruction to the mobile device; receiving the video of the property from the mobile device; identifying a set of video features corresponding to portions of the video; identifying a video feature from the set of video features using an image processing module; wherein the video feature matches the lease feature; identifying a portion of the video corresponding to the video feature; storing a lease tag associating the lease feature with the portion of the video for subsequent retrieval; receiving audio associated with the video of the property from the mobile device; identifying a set of audio features in the audio corresponding to portions of the audio; identifying an audio feature from the set of audio features, using an audio processing module; wherein the video feature matches the audio feature; storing an audio tag associating the audio feature with the portion of the video for subsequent retrieval; receiving a keyword from the user; retrieving a portion of the video associated with the keyword using at least one of the lease tag and the audio tag; and providing the portion of the video associated with the keyword to the user.

“2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: discarding an unused portion of the video of the property for which there is no lease feature corresponding to the unused portion of the video of the property and no audio feature corresponding to the unused portion of the video of the property.

“3. The method according to claim 1, wherein: at least one lease feature from the set of lease features is used to provide guidance instructions configured to help a user move about the property.

“4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: retrieving a portion of the audio associated with the keyword using the audio tag; and providing the portion of the audio associated with the keyword to the user.

“5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: retrieving a portion of the lease associated with the keyword using the lease tag; and providing the portion of the lease associated with the keyword to the user.

“6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the video is segmented into portions of video based on contextual information related to changes in the video and the audio is segmented into portions of audio based on contextual information related to changes in the audio.

“7. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: sending instructions to the mobile device to continue capturing video until the mobile device confirms that a video feature matches the lease feature; wherein the mobile device confirms that the video feature matches the lease feature using machine vision.

“8. A computer implemented method, comprising: receiving a lease for a property; identifying a set of lease features in the lease using natural language processing to identify features of the property to be documented; sending an instruction to a guidance module to guide a user of a mobile device through the property; prompting the user to capture video for at least one lease feature in the set of lease features; receiving video of the property; identifying a set of video features corresponding to portions of the video; determining, for at least one video feature from the set of video features, a corresponding lease feature; identifying a corresponding portion of the video corresponding to the at least one video feature; storing a lease tag associating the corresponding lease feature with the corresponding portion of the video for subsequent retrieval; receiving audio associated with the video of the property; identifying a set of audio features corresponding to portions of the audio; determining, for the at least one video feature, a corresponding audio feature; storing an audio tag associating the corresponding audio feature with the corresponding portion of the video for subsequent retrieval; receiving a keyword from the user; retrieving a portion of the video associated with the keyword using at least one of the audio tag and the lease tag to retrieve the portion of the video associated with the keyword; and providing the portion of the video associated with the keyword to the user.

“9. The method according to claim 8, further comprising identifying the set of audio features using automated speech recognition to convert the captured audio into text corresponding to the captured audio and using natural language processing to identify the text corresponding to the captured audio.

“10. The method according to claim 8, further comprising: comparing the set of lease features and the set of video features to determine if there is at least one video feature in the set of video features corresponding to at least one lease feature in the set of lease features; and instructing the user, using the guidance module, to continue capturing video until the guidance module confirms that it has received the at least one video feature corresponding to the at least one lease feature in the set of lease features by confirming that at least one video feature matches at least one corresponding lease feature using machine vision.

“11. The method according to claim 8, further comprising retrieving a portion of the audio associated with the keyword using the audio tag and providing the retrieved portion of the audio associated with the keyword to the user.

“12. The method according to claim 8, further comprising retrieving a portion of the lease associated with the keyword using the lease tag and providing the portion of the lease associated with the keyword to the user.

“13. A computing system, comprising: a guidance module configured to guide a user on an inspection of a property; an image processing module configured to receive video during the inspection and identify video features corresponding to portions of video produced by segmenting the video; wherein the video is segmented into the portions of video based on contextual information related to changes in the video; an audio processing module configured to receive audio during the inspection and identify audio features corresponding to portions of audio produced by segmenting the audio; a lease processing module configured to receive a lease for the property and analyze the lease using natural language processing to identify a set of lease features of the property to be documented; and a processor configured to: determine, for at least one video feature, a corresponding lease feature; identify a corresponding portion of the video corresponding to the at least one video feature; store a lease tag associating the corresponding lease feature with the corresponding portion of the video for subsequent retrieval; determine, for the at least one video feature, a corresponding audio feature; store an audio tag associating the corresponding audio feature with the corresponding portion of the video for subsequent retrieval; receive a keyword from the user; retrieve a portion of the video associated with the keyword using at least one of the lease tag and the audio tag to retrieve the portion of the video associated with the keyword; and provide the portion of the video associated with the keyword to the user.

“14. The computing system according to claim 13, wherein the processor is further configured to: retrieve a portion of the audio associated with the keyword using the audio tag; and provide the portion of the audio associated with the keyword to the user.

“15. The computing system according to claim 13, wherein the processor is further configured to: retrieve a portion of the lease associated with the keyword using the lease tag; and provide the portion of the lease associated with the keyword to the user.

“16. The computing system according to claim 13, wherein the processor is further configured to discard an unused portion of the video for which there is no lease feature corresponding to the unused portion of the video and no audio feature corresponding to the unused portion of the video.

“17. The computing system according to claim 13, wherein the processor is further configured to instruct the user, using the guidance module, to continue capturing video until the processor confirms that it has received at least one video feature for at least one lease feature in the lease features by confirming that at least one video feature matches at least one lease feature using machine vision.

“18. The computing system according to claim 13, wherein the audio is segmented into the portions of audio based on contextual information related to changes in the audio.

“19. The computing system according to claim 13, wherein at least one portion of audio is in one-to-one correspondence with a corresponding portion of video.

“20. The computing system according to claim 13, wherein the image processing module uses machine vision and the audio processing module uses speech recognition.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Bartee, Matthew Ray. Automated inspection system and method. U.S. Patent Number 11863865, filed November 16, 2022, and published online on January 2, 2024. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11863865)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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