Patent Issued for Bilateral communication in a login-free environment (USPTO 11463654): Allstate Insurance Company

2022 OCT 24 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Beavers, Sean Michael (Morton Grove, IL, US), Genc, Steven (Hainesville, IL, US), Gilkison, David L. (Libertyville, IL, US), Patel, Pinal (Libertyville, IL, US), Zahn, David M. (Lake Villa, IL, US), filed on January 15, 2019, was published online on October 4, 2022.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11463654 is Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Traditional customer service systems may allow contact between users without travel or making appointments, but telephonic communication is virtually useless for allowing accurate property evaluation by remote means. Sending pictures is similarly deficient, especially if an owner does not understand how best to portray the property.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The following presents a simplified summary in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the disclosure. The summary is not an extensive overview of the disclosure. It is neither intended to identify key or critical elements of the disclosure nor to delineate the scope of the disclosure. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the disclosure in a simplified form as a prelude to the description below.

“Aspects of the disclosure relate to methods, computer-readable media, and apparatuses for providing two-way audiovisual communication between a client, who may be an owner of the property being evaluated and an agent, who may be a user of a plurality of users associated with one or more systems or devices evaluating the property. The two-way audiovisual communication may be performed using a camera and microphone of a mobile computing device of the client and a camera and microphone of a computer of the agent remote from the client.

“The plurality of users may be organized in a queue ranked by amount of time spent waiting to answer an owner’s call. When the system receives a client call, the system may automatically route the call to an appropriate queue based on the prioritized ranking. The system may then utilize a camera on the client device to capture images and/or video of property according to the systems and methods described herein. Information gathered from the call may be used in evaluating the property.

“An administrative system may monitor the queue and to manage individual agents by modifying their attributes in order to keep the queue balanced with demand for agents appropriate to the distribution of clients currently calling.

“Calls may be dynamically connected in a login-free environment in order to facilitate data collection for one or more organizations. Methods and systems may facilitate data collection, reconnection in the event of disconnections, and/or call degradation handling in the event of weak or unstable connections.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method comprising: receiving, by a virtual collaboration server and from a computing device, a request to initiate a communication session regarding a damaged property, wherein the request comprises an indication of a claim type for a certain type of product or service; determining, by the virtual collaboration server, a number of available first agents in a first queue, wherein the first agents have a primary skill indicator associated with the claim type; determining, by the virtual collaboration server, that the number of available first agents is below a threshold; determining, by the virtual collaboration server, based on the determining that the number of available first agents is below a threshold and based on a secondary skill indicator, one or more second agents assigned to one or more other queues, wherein the one or more second agents are associated with the secondary skill indicator, and wherein the secondary skill indicator is associated with the claim type; reassigning, by the virtual collaboration server and based on the determining the one or more second agents, the one or more second agents from the one or more other queues to the first queue; assigning, by the virtual collaboration server, and from the first agents and the reassigned one or more second agents, an agent to the communication session; responsive to receiving an indication that the agent has accepted the request to initiate the communication session, initiating a bidirectional transmission of video and audio between the computing device and an additional computing device; and responsive to receiving, by the virtual collaboration server, an indication of insufficient connection for the bidirectional transmission, reducing, by the virtual collaboration server, either an agent communication transmission or a client communication transmission between the additional computing device and the computing device until the connection is sufficient for the bidirectional transmission.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein the request comprises a response to a personalized link, and wherein the personalized link comprises an indication of: an individual associated with the computing device; and the claim type.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein the request comprises one or more first images of damaged property for evaluation, and further comprising: transmitting the one or more first images of damaged property for storage by a database external to the virtual collaboration server.

“4. The method of claim 3, wherein the video comprises one or more second images of the damaged property for evaluation, and further comprising: transmitting the one or more second images of the damaged property for storage by the database.

“5. The method of claim 4, further comprising determining an instance of fraud based on comparing the one or more first images with the one or more second images.

“6. The method of claim 1, wherein the reducing either the agent communication transmission or the client communication transmission between the additional computing device and the computing device comprises reducing a bitrate of the transmissions between the additional computing device and the computing device, wherein the bitrate is proportional to a quality of transmission.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein the request to initiate the communication session regarding the damaged property comprises a request to initiate the communication session using a login-free connection.

“8. An apparatus, comprising: one or more processors; and memory storing instructions, the instructions when executed by the one or more processors, cause the apparatus to: receive, by a virtual collaboration server and from a computing device, a request to initiate a communication session regarding a damaged property, wherein the request comprises an indication of a claim type for a certain type of product or service; determine, by the virtual collaboration server, a number of available first agents in a first queue, wherein the first agents have a primary skill indicator associated with the claim type; determine, by the virtual collaboration server, that the number of available first agents is below a threshold; determine, by the virtual collaboration server, based on the determining that the number of available first agents is below a threshold and based on a secondary skill indicator, one or more second agents assigned to one or more other queues, wherein the one or more second agents are associated with the secondary skill indicator, and wherein the secondary skill indicator is associated with the claim type; reassign, by the virtual collaboration server and based on the determining the one or more second agents, the one or more second agents from the one or more other queues to the first queue; assign, by the virtual collaboration server, and from the first agents and the reassigned one or more second agents, an agent to the communication session; and responsive to receiving an indication that the agent has accepted the request to initiate the communication session, initiating a bidirectional transmission of video and audio between the computing device and an additional computing device; and responsive to receiving an indication of insufficient connection for the bidirectional transmission, reducing either an agent communication transmission or a client communication transmission between the additional computing device and the computing device until the communication is sufficient for the bidirectional transmission.

“9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the request comprises a response to a personalized link, and wherein the personalized link comprises an indication of: an individual associated with the computing device; and the claim type.

“10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the request comprises one or more first images of damaged property for evaluation, and further comprising: transmitting the one or more first images of damaged property for storage by a database external to the virtual collaboration server.

“11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the video comprises one or more second images of the damaged property for evaluation, and wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the apparatus to: transmit the one or more second images of the damaged property for storage by the database.

“12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the apparatus to determine an instance of fraud based on comparing the one or more first images with the one or more second images.

“13. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the apparatus to reduce either the agent communication transmission or the client communication transmission between the additional computing device and the computing device by reducing a bitrate of the transmissions between the additional computing device and the computing device, wherein the bitrate is proportional to a quality of transmission.

“14. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the request to initiate the communication session regarding the damaged property comprises a request to initiate the communication session using a login-free connection.

“15. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising computer-executable instructions stored thereon, the instructions, when executed by a processor, configured to perform operations comprising: receiving, by a virtual collaboration server and from a mobile computing device, a request to initiate a communication session regarding a damaged property, wherein the request comprises an indication of a claim type for a certain type of product or service; determining, by the virtual collaboration server, a number of available first agents in a first queue, wherein the first agents have a primary skill indicator associated with the claim type; determining, by the virtual collaboration server, that the number of available first agents is below a threshold; determining, by the virtual collaboration server, based on the determining that the number of available first agents is below a threshold and based on a secondary skill indicator, one or more second agents assigned to one or more other queues, wherein the one or more second agents are associated with the secondary skill indicator, and wherein the secondary skill indicator is associated with the claim type; reassigning, by the virtual collaboration server and based on the determining the one or more second agents, the one or more second agents from the one or more other queues to the first queue; assigning, by the virtual collaboration server, and from the first agents and the reassigned one or more second agents, an agent to the communication session; and responsive to receiving an indication that the agent has accepted the request to initiate the communication session, initiating a bidirectional transmission of video and audio between the mobile computing device and a computing device associated with the agent; and in response to receiving an indication of insufficient connection for the bidirectional transmission, reducing either an agent communication transmission or a client communication transmission between the computing device associated with the agent and the mobile computing device until the connection is sufficient for the bidirectional transmission.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

For additional information on this patent, see: Beavers, Sean Michael. Bilateral communication in a login-free environment. U.S. Patent Number 11463654, filed January 15, 2019, and published online on October 4, 2022. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11463654.PN.&OS=PN/11463654RS=PN/11463654

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)