Patent Issued for Crisis management system (USPTO 11057755)

2021 JUL 22 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Acosta, Stefanie (San Antonio, TX, US), Carr, Lisa Marie (San Antonio, TX, US), Harvey, Cynthia (Boerne, TX, US), Martinez, Jr., Raul F. (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on June 7, 2017, was published online on July 6, 2021.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11057755 is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Crisis management is the process by which an organization deals with a major event that threatens to harm the organization, its stakeholders, or the general public. In contrast to risk management, which involves assessing potential threats and finding the best ways to avoid those threats, crisis management involves dealing with threats before, during, and after they have occurred. Crisis management includes response to a spectrum of severity levels, ranging from small scale issues and medium scale incidents, to large scale crises. For the purposes of this document, the word crisis will be used to cover the entire spectrum. A critical element of crisis management is crisis communications.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “This specification describes technologies relating to digital communication and crisis management.

“In general, one innovative aspect of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include the actions of establishing a secure connection between a crisis communications management system and a device, enabling a continuous experience across multiple platforms. The method includes the actions of receiving, over the secure connection, a status update about a crisis situation. The method includes the actions of identifying a plurality of devices associated with team members assigned to the crisis response. The method includes the actions of pushing the status update to each of the plurality of devices.

“Other embodiments of this aspect include corresponding computer systems, apparatus, and computer programs recorded on one or more computer storage devices, each configured to perform the actions of the methods. A system of one or more computers can be configured to perform particular actions by virtue of having software, firmware, hardware, or a combination of them installed on the system that in operation causes or cause the system to perform the actions. One or more computer programs can be configured to perform particular actions by virtue of including instructions that, when executed by data processing apparatus, cause the apparatus to perform the actions.

“The foregoing and other embodiments can each optionally include one or more of the following features, alone or in combination. The methods may include the actions of establishing a chat session between each of the plurality of devices. The methods may include the actions of receiving news about the crisis situation from a news aggregation system, and forwarding the news to each of the plurality of devices. The news aggregation system may aggregate news from sources internal to the organization and sources external to the organization. The system may enable communication between team members and may include at least one stakeholder. The methods may include the actions of providing a list of crises assigned to a user, each crisis associated with a distinct collaboration space. Each distinct collaboration space may be associated with a distinct plurality of users.

“Particular embodiments of the subject matter described in this specification can be implemented so as to realize one or more of the following advantages. Crises may be more effectively managed. Team members may have access to view multiple crisis situations at macro level. Team members can communicate using secure communication channels. Team members can quickly access pre-developed and approved strategies and messaging. Team members have access to single source of facts and action plans. Team members have ability to access historical record of events, actions, and communications. Team members can receive up to date communications. Team members can quickly collaborate and make decisions using the plurality of devices.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method comprising: establishing, by a crisis communications management system, a secure connection between the crisis communications management system and each mobile device in a plurality of mobile devices; causing, by the crisis communications management system, a display device of a first mobile device of the plurality of mobile devices to render a user interface comprising one or more user-selectable icons, each of the user-selectable icons corresponding to a different respective crisis situation; causing, in response to receiving selection data indicating that a user of the first mobile device selected a user-selectable icon of the one or more user-selectable icons, the user interface to display information about the crisis situation corresponding to the selected user-selectable icon; receiving, by the crisis communications management system over the secure connection, data representing an update about the crisis situation corresponding to the selected user-selectable icon, the data being received from the first mobile device through the user interface; identifying, by the crisis communications management system, at least one second mobile device of the plurality of mobile devices, the at least one second mobile device associated with a team member assigned to the crisis situation corresponding to the selected user-selectable icon; and transmitting, by the crisis communications management system and over the secure connection, a push notification to an application on the identified at least one second mobile device which, when received by the application, causes the application to display, on a display device of the at least one second mobile device, the update about the crisis situation corresponding to the selected user-selectable icon.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: establishing a chat session between at least two mobile devices in the plurality of mobile devices.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving news about the crisis situation from a news aggregation system; and forwarding the news to the identified at least one second mobile device.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the crisis communications management system enables communication between team members and at least one stakeholder.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein each of the user-selectable icons correspond to a crisis situation assigned to the user of the first mobile device.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein each of the user-selectable icons correspond to a distinct collaboration space that is associated with a distinct plurality of users.

“7. A non-transitory computer storage medium encoded with computer program instructions that when executed by one or more computers of a crisis communications management system cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising: establishing a secure connection between the crisis communications management system and each mobile device in a plurality of mobile devices; causing a display device of a first mobile device of the plurality of mobile devices to render a user interface comprising one or more user-selectable icons, each of the user-selectable icons corresponding to a different respective crisis situation; causing, in response to receiving selection data indicating that a user of the first mobile device selected a user-selectable icon of the one or more user-selectable icons, the user interface to display information about the crisis situation corresponding to the selected user-selectable icon; receiving, over the secure connection, data representing an update about the crisis situation corresponding to the selected user-selectable icon, the data being received from the first mobile device through the user interface; identifying at least one second mobile device of the plurality of mobile devices, the at least one second mobile device associated with a team member assigned to the crisis situation corresponding to the selected user-selectable icon; and transmitting, over the secure connection, a push notification to an application on the identified at least one second mobile device which, when received by the application, causes the application to display, on a display device of the at least one second mobile device, the update about the crisis situation corresponding to the selected user-selectable icon.

“8. The non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 7, wherein the instructions are further operable to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising: establishing a chat session between at least two mobile devices in the plurality of mobile devices.

“9. The non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 7, wherein the instructions are further operable to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising: receiving news about the crisis situation from a news aggregation system; and forwarding the news to the identified at least one second mobile device.

“10. The non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 7, wherein the crisis communications management system enables communication between team members and at least one stakeholder.

“11. The non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 7, wherein each of the user-selectable icons correspond to a crisis situation assigned to the user of the first mobile device.

“12. The non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 7, wherein each of the user-selectable icons correspond to a distinct collaboration space that is associated with a distinct plurality of users.

“13. A system comprising: one or more computers of a crisis communications management system 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 perform operations comprising: establishing a secure connection between the crisis communications management system and each mobile device in a plurality of mobile devices; causing a display device of a first mobile device of the plurality of mobile devices to render a user interface comprising one or more user-selectable icons, each of the user-selectable icons corresponding to a different respective crisis situation; causing, in response to receiving selection data indicating that a user of the first mobile device selected a user-selectable icon of the one or more user-selectable icons, the user interface to display information about the crisis situation corresponding to the selected user-selectable icon; receiving, over the secure connection, data representing an update about the crisis situation corresponding to the selected user-selectable icon, the data being received from the first mobile device through the user interface; identifying at least one second mobile device of the plurality of mobile devices, the at least one second mobile device associated with a team member assigned to the crisis situation corresponding to the selected user-selectable icon; and transmitting, over the secure connection, a push notification to an application on the identified at least one second mobile device which, when received by the application, causes the application to display, on a display device of the at least one second mobile device, the update about the crisis situation corresponding to the selected user-selectable icon.

“14. The system of claim 13, wherein the instructions are further operable to cause the cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising: establishing a chat session between at least two mobile devices in the plurality of mobile devices.

“15. The system of claim 13, wherein the instructions are further operable to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising: receiving news about the crisis situation from a news aggregation system; and forwarding the news to the identified at least one second mobile device.

“16. The system of claim 13, wherein the crisis communications management system enables communication between team members and at least one stakeholder.

“17. The system of claim 13, wherein each of the user-selectable icons correspond to a crisis situation assigned to the user of the first mobile device.

“18. The system of claim 13, wherein each of the user-selectable icons correspond to a distinct collaboration space that is associated with a distinct plurality of users.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Acosta, Stefanie. Crisis management system. U.S. Patent Number 11057755, filed June 7, 2017, and published online on July 6, 2021. 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=11057755.PN.&OS=PN/11057755RS=PN/11057755

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