Patent Issued for Computer resource-based API transaction method and system (USPTO 11882055): United Services Automobile Association

2024 FEB 12 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, a patent by the inventors Khmelev, Yevgeniy Viatcheslavovich (San Antonio, TX, US), Meyer, Gregory Brian (San Antonio, TX, US), Morley, David (San Antonio, TX, US), Russell, Christopher (The Colony, TX, US), Russell, Ryan Thomas (The Colony, TX, US), Schulz, Deborah Janette (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on July 12, 2022, was published online on January 23, 2024.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11882055, is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Various types of application programming interface (API) service providers may provide one or more online services and/or resources to users, merchants, and different entities. For example, the application services (also referred to herein as application features) may be associated with a social networking, mapping, video game, media playback, such as streaming services and/or downloading of digital media, or other types of applications. However, each online service requires processing power by the online service and data transfer capabilities between the online service and the user’s computing device. In particular during times of high processing demand on the service provider, requests for processing by a client device to the service provider may expend a large amount of computing processing.

“In view of these types of expenditures, many businesses and other organizations would benefit from mechanisms by which to reduce the transactional costs associated with the execution, operation, maintenance, and supporting of the services (for example, provided via various APIs) on the provider’s own computers. For many business solutions, large numbers of end-users can often submit requests or ‘calls’ to applications that result in high-volume, or batch, transactions, rather than more infrequent interactive transactions. To combat these issues, API service providers may look for flexible and cost-effective ways to offer and maintain services for frequent consumer transactions.

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

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In one aspect, a method of managing requests to an application programming interface (API) is disclosed. The method includes identifying, for a transaction processing task, a plurality of task units, and receiving, at a first time, from a user account, a first request to access a first service offered through the API. The method further includes determining that access to the first service is conditional upon performance of a first amount of the transaction processing task, and assigning, to the user account, a first set of task units from the plurality of task units equivalent to the first amount. Furthermore, the method includes receiving a first indication that at least the first set of task units has been performed, and granting to the user account, in response to receiving the first indication, a first access session of the first service.

“In another aspect, a system for managing requests to an application programming interface (API) includes a processor and machine-readable media. The machine-readable media include instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to identify, for a transaction processing task, a plurality of task units, and to receive, at a first time, from a user account, a first request to access a first service offered through the API. The instructions also cause the processor to determine that access to the first service is conditional upon performance of a first amount of the transaction processing task, and assign, to the user account, a first set of task units from the plurality of task units equivalent to the first amount. In addition, the instructions cause the processor to receive a first indication that at least the first set of task units has been performed, and grant to the user account, in response to receiving the first indication, a first access session of the first service.

“In another aspect, a system for managing requests to an application programming interface (API) includes means for means for identifying, for a transaction processing task, a plurality of task units, as well as means for receiving, at a first time, from a user account, a first request to access a first service offered through the API. The system also includes means for determining that access to the first service is conditional upon performance of a first amount of the transaction processing task, and means for assigning, to the user account, a first set of task units from the plurality of task units equivalent to the first amount. Furthermore, the system includes means for receiving a first indication that at least the first set of task units has been performed, and means for granting to the user account, in response to receiving the first indication, a first access session of the first service.

“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 system for managing access to an application programming interface (API), the system comprising a processor and machine-readable media including instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: receive requests from a user account to access a service offered through the API; assign computational tasks to the user account that must be performed using computational resources that are associated with the user account before the user account is allowed access to the service; transmit the assigned computational tasks to multiple nodes associated with the computational resources for the user account; determine whether the assigned computational tasks have been successfully performed; and provide access to a requested service when the task completion determination module has determined the assigned computational tasks have been successfully performed.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to identify one or more computational tasks that are in a task queue.

“3. The system of claim 2, wherein the identified computational tasks are used to determine a type and amount of one or more computational tasks that must be performed in order for the user account to be provided access to a requested service.

“4. The system of claim 3, wherein the determination of type and amount is based on one or more of user account status, user activity, and the computational resources available via the user account.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to organize the computational tasks into groups that are computationally similar.

“6. The system of claim 5, wherein each group is sent to a single node so that tasks that are computationally similar are all be processed at the same computational node.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the requests from the user account further include one or more of a communication use protocol, a request token, a uniform resource locator, an access token URL, and an application signature.

“8. The system of claim 1, wherein a portion of the assigned computational tasks comprise a plurality of verification tasks for which there is a known output value.

“9. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to deny access to the user account if the the assigned computational tasks have not been performed, were partially performed but unfinished, or were performed but one or more items are invalid.

“10. A method of managing requests to an application programming interface (API), the method comprising: receiving, at a request processor associated with the API, a first request from a user account to access a service offered through the API; determining, at a service exchange processor associated with the API, that access to the first service is conditional upon performance of a first set of computational tasks using computational resources associated with the user account; transmitting, via a task distribution module, the first set of computational tasks to multiple nodes associated with the computational resources for the user account; determining, at the service exchange processor, that the first set of computational tasks have been performed successfully by the computational resources associated with the user account; and providing at a first time, via an authorization engine associated with the API, permissions to the user account and enabling access to the API in response to determining the first set of computational tasks have been performed.

“11. The method of claim 10, further comprising granting at least one subsequent access session of the service to the user account in response to determining the first set of computational tasks have been performed.

“12. The method of claim 11, further comprising: receiving from the user account, at a second time after the first time, a second request to access the service; determining the user account has at least one subsequent access session remaining; and granting, in response to determining at least one subsequent access session remains, a second access session of the service to the user account.

“13. The method of claim 12, further comprising: receiving from the user account, at a third time after the second time, a third request to access the service; determining the user account has at no access sessions remaining; and denying, in response to determining no access session remains, subsequent access sessions of the service by the user account.

“14. The method of claim 13, further comprising assigning to the user account, in response to determining no access session remains, a second set of computational tasks.

“15. The method of claim 10, wherein the first set of computational tasks further include an artificially generated verification task which has a predefined outcome.

“16. The method of claim 15, further comprising: receiving, at the service exchange processor, an output from the user account indicating performance of the first set of computational tasks; determining the output includes the predefined outcome; and verifying, in response determining the output includes the predefined outcome, the first set of computational tasks were performed successfully.

“17. A system of managing requests to an application programming interface (API), the system comprising one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to: receive, at a request processor associated with the API, a first request from a user account to access a service offered through the API; determine, at a service exchange processor associated with the API, that access to the first service is conditional upon performance of a first set of computational tasks using computational resources associated with the user account; transmit, via a task distribution module, the first set of computational tasks to multiple nodes associated with the computational resources for the user account; determine, at the service exchange processor, that the first set of computational tasks have been performed successfully by the computational resources associated with the user account; and provide at a first time, via an authorization engine associated with the API, permissions to the user account and enabling access to the API in response to determining the first set of computational tasks have been performed.

“18. The system of claim 17, wherein the first set of computational tasks further include an artificially generated verification task which has a predefined outcome.

“19. The system of claim 18, wherein the instructions further cause the one or more computers to: receive, at the service exchange processor, an output from the user account indicating performance of the first set of computational tasks; determine the output includes the predefined outcome; and verify, in response determining the output includes the predefined outcome, the first set of computational tasks were performed successfully.

“20. The system of claim 17, wherein the instructions further cause the one or more computers to grant at least one subsequent access session of the service to the user account in response to determining the first set of computational tasks have been performed.”

For more information, see this patent: Khmelev, Yevgeniy Viatcheslavovich. Computer resource-based API transaction method and system. U.S. Patent Number 11882055, filed July 12, 2022, and published online on January 23, 2024. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11882055)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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