Patent Issued for Community-based digital transaction authentication (USPTO 11748807): United Services Automobile Association

2023 SEP 25 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Desai, Snehal (Richardson, TX, US), Erickson, Jennifer Hunt (San Antonio, TX, US), Hartshorn, Joel S. (Olalla, WA, US), Khmelev, Yevgeniy Viatcheslavovich (San Antonio, TX, US), Lopez, Jeanie Graciela (San Antonio, TX, US), Prasad, Bharat (San Antonio, TX, US), Schwarz, Jr., Thomas Wayne (Helotes, TX, US), Serrao, Nolan (Plano, TX, US), filed on July 31, 2020, was published online on September 5, 2023.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11748807 is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “The present disclosure relates generally to systems and methods to facilitate digital transactions. More specifically, the techniques discussed herein relate to utilizing a distributed ledger to authenticate users and perform digital transactions.

“This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it may be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.

“Communities include homes, businesses, parks, governmental buildings, and the like. When deciding whether to reside in a particular community, individuals may evaluate various aspects of the homes, building, businesses, and other features provided within the community. In the digital age, data regarding the community may be used to help individuals better assess a likelihood that community may address or fit a certain set of rules for an individual or a business. As such, it is now recognized that improved systems and methods for evaluating a community fit for an individual or business based on data regarding various aspects of the community may assist individuals and businesses in identifying a community that may enable the individuals or businesses to achieve certain goals.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “One or more specific embodiments of the present disclosure are described above. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, all features of an actual implementation may not be described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers’ specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.

“When introducing elements of various embodiments of the present disclosure, the articles “a,” “an,” and “the” are intended to mean that there are one or more of the elements. The terms “comprising,” “including,” and “having” are intended to be inclusive and mean that there may be additional elements other than the listed elements. Additionally, it should be understood that references to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” of the present disclosure are not intended to be interpreted as excluding the existence of additional embodiments that also incorporate the recited features.

“Present embodiments are generally directed toward community and/or location-based processes performed and recorded within a distributed ledger (e.g., blockchain) to enable accurate and secure digital transactions. As discussed below, various types of information (e.g., school district rating, property value, parks, available businesses) regarding communities (e.g., counties, cities, towns, municipalities) may be utilized to determine community factors associated with the communities. The community factors may be determined based on data provided from various sensors (e.g., vehicle sensors, image data from cameras, traffic light cameras), digital reviews provided on a website, a social media application, or the like. As discussed below, community factors may be utilized for a variety of purposes and applications, such as to compare communities to one another. As another example, community factors may be utilized to enable machine learning algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI) systems, or other suitable computing systems to determine target communities for businesses to be opened and/or services to be provided. Additionally, community factors may be used to determine whether there is a community gap, or a perceived or estimated desire for a particular type of business or service within a community. By utilizing community factors to determine whether there is a community gap for a particular type of business or service, a level of subjectivity associated with issuing a loan may be reduced or eliminated. For example, when different people review information that may be included in a loan application, they may reach different opinions about whether a particular investment (e.g., a new business) is desired within a community, which can lead to subjectively different opinions about whether a load should be issued or the amount of a loan to be issued. By utilizing community factors, such subjectivity may be reduced or eliminated.

“As additionally discussed herein, identification and reputation data for users may be determined based on data (e.g., social media data, online data, review data, financial data) made available regarding users (e.g., of a digital application). For example, identification and reputation data related to the perceived trustworthiness or reliability of a user to repay a loan may be determined based the user’s financial data. The community factor data, the identification data, and the reputation data may be stored, for example, on a distributed ledger (e.g., blockchain), and users may provide permission settings regarding access to their data. Digital transactions between users or entities may occur over the distributed ledger. For example, financial transactions, such as loans, may be carried out between users via the distributed ledger. The identity of one or more of the users may be authenticated, information about the users may be shared, and each user may make a decision to engage in a transaction based on a relevant community factor and/or a user’s reputation score. Indeed, in some embodiments, a computing system may automatically perform the transaction in response to the relevant community factor and/or the user’s reputation score meeting some threshold. Accordingly, secure digital transactions may be provided between users, users and organizations, and the like.

“As another example, a review score or reputation score for an entity (e.g., a business) may be determined based on user reviews or ratings. Users may be authenticated, and information associated with each user may be utilized to determine how heavily the user’s review or rating should be weighed in determining the review score or reputation score for the entity or if the user’s review will even be utilized in determining the review score or reputation score for the entity. For example, user authentication may be performed utilizing a distributed ledger. Reviews from unauthenticated users may be discarded. Reviews from authenticated users may be weighted based on information associated with the entity being reviewed and the user reviewing the entity. For example, a location and a class or type of the entity may be considered, as may one or more locations associated with the user. The review score may be determined based on a weighting assigned to a review or rating assigned to the user. Accordingly, accurate, secure, and region or locale-specific ratings may be provided and stored on the distributed ledger. Furthermore, by utilizing authenticated users and basing the reputation or review scores on one or more locations (e.g., one or more locations associated with an authenticated user and/or an entity being reviewed), a review scores and reputations scores may be objectively more accurate than other ratings or rating techniques. For example, online reviews or ratings for products or entities (e.g., businesses) may be influenced, often times negatively, by unverified or false reviews that have been provided. Such ratings or reviews may sometimes be provided by people, while other times, these reviews could be generated by software. By utilizing the techniques described herein, more accurate and secure ratings may be provided, for example, because reviews provided by unverified or unauthenticated sources (e.g., users or user accounts) may be identified and not considered (or weighted relatively lowly) when determining a rating or score for an entity being reviewed. Additionally, by utilizing the location of the entity being reviewed and/or the location of a user leaving the review, the authenticity of the review may be determined, thereby increasing the accuracy of the rating or reviews for the entity.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system, comprising: one or more sensors configured to acquire sensor data representative of a first geographic area lacking a service, wherein the sensor data comprises: municipal data indicative of weather present in the first geographic area over a first period of time; vehicular data indicative of operational properties of a plurality of vehicles in the first geographic area over the first period of time; and utility data indicative of utility consumption, utility costs, types of utility services, or any combination thereof over the first period of time; a processor configured to: receive a request for a loan from a requesting party, wherein the request is associated with the service to be provided in the first geographic area; retrieve a reputation score associated with the requesting party, wherein the reputation score corresponds to a risk in granting the loan, and wherein the reputation score is determined based on financial information associated with the requesting party; determine, based on the sensor data, a community factor score for the first geographic area, wherein the community factor score is representative of traffic conditions, weather conditions, and utility consumption data within the first geographic area; identify a second geographic area having the service based on a comparison between the sensor data and additional sensor data acquired by one or more additional sensors, wherein the additional sensor data comprises: additional municipal data indicative of weather present in the second geographic area over a second period of time; additional vehicular data indicative of additional operational properties of an additional plurality of vehicles in the second geographic areas over the second period of time; and additional utility data indicative of utility consumption, utility costs, types of utility services, or any combination thereof over the second period of time; determine, based on the additional sensor data, an additional community factor score for the second geographic area, wherein the additional community factor score is representative of additional traffic conditions, additional weather conditions, and additional utility consumption data within the second geographic area; determine that the first geographical area is suitable for the service based on a comparison between the community factor score for the first geographic area and the additional community factor score for the second geographic area; identify an additional party for providing the loan to the requesting party based on the reputation score exceeding a threshold; automatically update permission information to authorize access of a distributed ledger by the additional party, wherein the distributed ledger corresponds to the requesting party; receive an indication of an acceptance to provide funds to the requesting party from an additional computing device that corresponds to the additional party; and automatically transfer funds to an account associated with the requesting party via a smart contract in response to the smart contract confirming that: the indication of the acceptance is received; the first geographical area is suitable for the service; and the reputation score exceeding the threshold, wherein the funds are automatically transferred via the smart contract stored on an additional distributed ledger associated with the additional party.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to automatically transfer the funds to the account authorize the requested loan after determining a community gap associated with the service being present in the second geographic area and lacking in the first geographic area exceeds an additional threshold.

“3. The system of claim 2, wherein the processor is configured to determine the community gap by comparing a first community factor associated with the first geographic area to one or more community factors associated with one or more other geographic areas.

“4. The system of claim 3, wherein the first community factor is determined based on the municipal data, the vehicular data, or a combination thereof.

“5. The system of claim 2, wherein the first community factor comprises a walkability score for the first geographic area.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to determine the reputation score for the requesting party.

“7. The system of claim 1 wherein the processor is configured to retrieve the reputation score from the distributed ledger.

“8. The system of claim 1, wherein the threshold is defined by a member providing the funds.

“9. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed, are configured to cause one or more processors to: receive sensor data representative of a first geographic area lacking a service, wherein the sensor data comprises; municipal data indicative of weather present in the first geographic area over a first period of time; vehicular data indicative of operational properties of a plurality of vehicles in the first geographic area over the first period of time; and utility data indicative of utility consumption, utility costs, types of utility services, or any combination thereof over the first period of time; receive a request for a loan from a requesting party, wherein the request is associated with the service to be provided in the first geographic area; retrieve a reputation score associated with the requesting party, wherein the reputation score corresponds to a risk in granting the loan, and wherein the reputation score is determined based on financial information associated with the requesting party; determine, based on the sensor data, a community factor score for the first geographic area, wherein the community factor score is representative of traffic conditions, weather conditions, and utility consumption data within the first geographic area; identify a second geographic area having the service based on a comparison between the sensor data and additional sensor data acquired by one or more additional sensors, wherein the additional sensor data comprises; additional municipal data indicative of weather present in the second geographic area over a second period of time; additional vehicular data indicative of additional operational properties of an additional plurality of vehicles in the second geographic areas over the second period of time; and additional utility data indicative of utility consumption, utility costs, types of utility services, or any combination thereof over the second period of time; determine, based on the additional sensor data, an additional community factor score for the second geographic area, wherein the additional community factor score is representative of additional traffic conditions, additional weather conditions, and additional utility consumption data within the second geographic area; determine that the first geographical area is suitable for the service based on a comparison between the community factor score for the first geographic area and the additional community factor score for the second geographic area; identify an additional party for providing the loan to the requesting party based on the reputation score exceeding a threshold; automatically update permission information to authorize access of a distributed ledger by the additional party, wherein the distributed ledger corresponds to the requesting party; receive an indication of an acceptance to provide funds to the requesting party from an additional computing device that corresponds to the additional party; and automatically transfer funds to an account associated with the requesting party via a smart contract in response to the smart contract confirming that: the indication of the acceptance is received; the first geographical area is suitable for the service; and the reputation score exceeding the threshold, wherein the funds are automatically transferred via the smart contract stored on an additional distributed ledger associated with the additional party.

“10. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to: determine a community factor associated with the first geographic area; and identify the second geographic area by comparing one or more community factors associated with one or more geographic areas similar to the first geographic area.

“11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to determine a loan amount based on the one or more community factors.

“12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to determine the loan amount based on the reputation score.

“13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the service is associated with a type of business, wherein instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to: determine one or more geographic areas that are similar to the first geographic area based on the community factor; and determine one or more performances of the type of business in the one or more geographic areas.”

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

For additional information on this patent, see: Desai, Snehal. Community-based digital transaction authentication. U.S. Patent Number 11748807, filed July 31, 2020, and published online on September 5, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11748807)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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