Patent Issued for Cross-device presentation with conversational user interface (USPTO 11776046): United Services Automobile Association

2023 OCT 24 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Alcantar, Ricardo (San Antonio, TX, US), Leal, Philip Andrew (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on January 25, 2019, was published online on October 3, 2023, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11776046 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: “Various types of network-connected smart appliances, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, mobile devices, and/or other computing devices have become available to consumers. Such devices may serve a primary function (e.g., a washing machine washing clothes), while also providing smart capabilities for sensing its state, and/or the state of the local environment, collecting state data, executing logic, communicating information to other devices over networks, and so forth. Different devices may have different capabilities with regard to data input and data output. For example, a device may accept audio input (e.g., speech input) and provide audio output, but may not include a display for visually presenting data, or may include a limited display that does not support a graphical user interface (GUI). As another example, a device such as a television may include a large display but may lack a full-featured user interface for inputting data.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Implementations of the present disclosure are generally directed to cross-device presentation. More specifically, implementations are directed to receiving one or more search terms through a conversational user interface of an input device, generating recommendation information based on the search term(s), and presenting the recommendation information through at least one output device other than the input device.

“In general, innovative aspects of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include operations of: receiving speech data provided by a user during a speech interaction with a conversational user interface (CUI) executing on an input computing device; analyzing the speech data to determine at least one search term that is specified by the user through the speech interaction; determining an item score for each of a plurality of items, wherein the item score indicates a predicted affinity of the user for a respective item and is determined based at least partly on a degree of correspondence between the at least one search term and criteria information for the respective item; generating recommendation information for the user describing at least one recommended item for which the respective item score is at least a threshold value; and transmitting the recommendation information for presentation through at least one output computing device that is associated with the user.

“Implementations can optionally include one or more of the following features: the operations further include transmitting the recommendation information to the input computing device for presentation through the CUI; the input computing device is a personal assistant (PA) device; the input computing device is headless; the at least one output computing device includes a display; the recommendation information is transmitted to the at least one output computing device for presentation through the display; the analyzed speech data is audio data that is recorded by at least one microphone that is a component of the input computing device; the analyzed speech data is text data that is generated by transcribing at least a portion of audio data that is recorded by at least one microphone that is a component of the input computing device; the plurality of items includes a plurality of vehicles available for purchase; the recommendation information includes a plurality of recommended items that are ordered according to the respective item score for each of the plurality of recommended items.

“Other implementations of any of the above aspects include corresponding systems, apparatus, and computer programs that are configured to perform the actions of the methods, encoded on computer storage devices. The present disclosure also provides a computer-readable storage medium coupled to one or more processors and having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations in accordance with implementations of the methods provided herein. The present disclosure further provides a system for implementing the methods provided herein. The system includes one or more processors, and a computer-readable storage medium coupled to the one or more processors having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations in accordance with implementations of the methods provided herein.

“Implementations of the present disclosure provide the following technical advantages and technical improvements over previously available solutions. By integrating services through a conversational user interface executing on a personal assistant device, implementations provide an efficient, hands-free, speech interactive technique for accessing services that avoids or reduces the use of graphical user interfaces executing on other computing devices, thus reducing the amount of processing power, active memory, network bandwidth, storage capacity, and/or other computing resources that may be employed by previously available systems to provide services to users. Moreover, by integrating services through a conversational user interface executing on a personal assistant device, implementations provide a technique to leverage a personal assistant device that a user may have in their home or other environment, to provide new options to access services, facilitate item searches, facilitate transactions, provide marketing opportunities to a service provider, enable a service provider to reduce costs and time spent for customer service personnel, and generally provide a more positive and easy-to-use user experience than is available using traditional, previously available search interfaces.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method performed by at least one processor, the method comprising: receiving, by the at least one processor, from an input computing device, speech data provided by a user during a speech interaction with a conversational user interface (CUI) executing on the input computing device; analyzing, by the at least one processor, the speech data to determine at least one search term that is specified by the user through the speech interaction; determining, by the at least one processor, an item score for each of a plurality of items, wherein the item score indicates a predicted affinity of the user for a respective item and is determined based at least partly on a degree of correspondence between the at least one search term and criteria information for the respective item; generating, by the at least one processor, a recommendation for the user describing at least one recommended item for which the respective item score is at least a threshold value; automatically detecting at least one output computing device that is available to display the recommendation, the at least one output computing device being different from the input computing device, wherein the detecting comprises: automatically detecting that the at least one output computing device is turned on and network-accessible; in response to automatically detecting that the at least one output computing device is turned on and network-accessible, prompting, through the CUI executing on the input computing device, the user to confirm whether the recommendation is to be presented on the at least one output computing device; and in response to receiving the user’s confirmation that the recommendation is to be presented on the at least one output computing device, transmitting, by the at least one processor, the recommendation for display on the at least one output computing devices.

“2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: transmitting, by the at least one processor, the recommendation to the input computing device for presentation through the CUI.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein the input computing device is a personal assistant (PA) device.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein: the input computing device is headless; and the at least one output computing device includes a display.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein the analyzed speech data is audio data that is recorded by at least one microphone that is a component of the input computing device.

“6. The method of claim 1, wherein the analyzed speech data is text data that is generated by transcribing at least a portion of audio data that is recorded by at least one microphone that is a component of the input computing device.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of items includes a plurality of vehicles available for purchase.

“8. The method of claim 1, wherein the recommendation includes a plurality of recommended items that are ordered according to the respective item score for each of the plurality of recommended items.

“9. A system, comprising: at least one processor; and a memory communicatively coupled to the at least one processor, the memory storing instructions which, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising: receiving, from an input computing device, speech data provided by a user during a speech interaction with a conversational user interface (CUI) executing on the input computing device; analyzing the speech data to determine at least one search term that is specified by the user through the speech interaction; determining an item score for each of a plurality of items, wherein the item score indicates a predicted affinity of the user for a respective item and is determined based at least partly on a degree of correspondence between the at least one search term and criteria information for the respective item; generating a recommendation describing at least one recommended item for which the respective item score is at least a threshold value; and automatically detecting at least one output computing device of the user that is available to display the recommendation, the at least one output computing device being different from the input computing device, wherein the detecting comprises: automatically detecting that the at least one output computing device is turned on and network-accessible; and in response to automatically detecting that the at least one output computing device is turned on and network-accessible, prompting, through the CUI executing on the input computing device, the user to confirm whether the recommendation is to be presented on the at least one output computing device; and in response to receiving the user’s confirmation that the recommendation is to be presented on the at least one output computing device, transmitting, by the at least one processor, the recommendation for display on the at least one output computing devices.

“10. The system of claim 9, the operations further comprising: transmitting the recommendation to the input computing device for presentation through the CUI.

“11. The system of claim 9, wherein the input computing device is a personal assistant (PA) device.

“12. The system of claim 9, wherein: the input computing device is headless; and the at least one output computing device includes a display.

“13. The system of claim 9, wherein the analyzed speech data is audio data that is recorded by at least one microphone that is a component of the input computing device.

“14. The system of claim 9, wherein the analyzed speech data is text data that is generated by transcribing at least a portion of audio data that is recorded by at least one microphone that is a component of the input computing device.

“15. The system of claim 9, wherein the plurality of items includes a plurality of vehicles available for purchase.

“16. The system of claim 9, wherein the recommendation includes a plurality of recommended items that are ordered according to the respective item score for each of the plurality of recommended items.

“17. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions which, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising: receiving, from an input computing device, speech data provided by a user during a speech interaction with a conversational user interface (CUI) executing on the input computing device; analyzing the speech data to determine at least one search term that is specified by the user through the speech interaction; determining an item score for each of a plurality of items, wherein the item score indicates a predicted affinity of the user for a respective item and is determined based at least partly on a degree of correspondence between the at least one search term and criteria information for the respective item; generating a recommendation describing at least one recommended item for which the respective item score is at least a threshold value; and automatically detecting at least one output computing device of the user that is available to display the recommendation, the at least one output computing device being different from the input computing device, wherein the detecting comprises: automatically detecting that the at least one output computing device is turned on and network-accessible; and in response to automatically detecting that the at least one output computing device is turned on and network-accessible, prompting, through the CUI executing on the input computing device, the user to confirm whether the recommendation is to be presented on the at least one output computing device; and in response to receiving the user’s confirmation that the recommendation is to be presented on the at least one output computing device, transmitting, by the at least one processor, the recommendation for display on the at least one output computing devices.

“18. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 17, wherein: the input computing device is headless; and the at least one output computing device includes a display.

“19. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 17, wherein the analyzed speech data is audio data that is recorded by at least one microphone that is a component of the input computing device.

“20. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 17, wherein the analyzed speech data is text data that is generated by transcribing at least a portion of audio data that is recorded by at least one microphone that is a component of the input computing device.

“21. The method of claim 1, wherein the output computing device is a television.

“22. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting the at least one output computing device of the user that is available to display the recommendation comprises: detecting a plurality of output computing devices that are located at different locations and are available to display the recommendation, the plurality of output computing devices being different from the input computing device, and wherein transmitting, by the at least one processor, the recommendation for display on the at least one output computing device comprises: transmitting, by the at least one processor, the recommendation for display on the plurality of output computing devices.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Alcantar, Ricardo. Cross-device presentation with conversational user interface. U.S. Patent Number 11776046, filed January 25, 2019, and published online on October 3, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11776046)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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