Patent Issued for Digital identification system (USPTO 11539703): United Services Automobile Association

2023 JAN 13 (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 Anaruk, Andrew L. (San Antonio, TX, US), Bess, Christopher (McKinney, TX, US), Borunda, Adrian (Celina, TX, US), Hernandez, Heather (San Antonio, TX, US), Liang, Minya (Redmond, WA, US), Pickrel, Cory S. (Austin, TX, US), Shelton, John (San Antonio, TX, US), Vijayvergia, Gunjan (San Antonio, TX, US), Wright, III, William H. (Helotes, TX, US), filed on December 3, 2020, was published online on December 27, 2022.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11539703, is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Identification documents may be used to verify aspects of a person’s personal identity. If issued in the form of a small, mostly standard-sized card, it is usually called an identity card (ID or ID card). Countries which do not have formal identity documents may require identity verification using informal documents.

“In the absence of a formal identity document, driving licenses may be accepted in many countries for identity verification. Some countries do not accept driving licenses for identification, often because in those countries they do not expire as documents and can be old or easily forged. Most countries accept passports as a form of identification.

“Identification documents may also be used to verify an individual’s membership in a group. For example, student identification cards are used as proof that the individual is a student, faculty, or staff at a school. Military identification cards are used as proof that the individual is a member of the armed services.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “This specification describes technologies relating to digital identification.

“In general, one innovative aspect of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include the actions of comparing the location of a requester of a digital identification to the location of an owner of the digital identification. The methods also include the actions of providing information about the digital identification to the requester based at least in part on determining that the requester and the owner are within a predetermined distance.

“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. Providing information about the digital identification may be further based on receiving authorization to share the information from the owner. The methods may include the actions of receiving a pre-authorization to share the digital identification, and storing the pre-authorization. The pre-authorization may expire after a predetermined period of time. The location of the owner of the digital identification may be obtained without notifying the owner. The methods may include the actions of receiving a license plate number associated with a vehicle of the owner, identifying the owner based on the license plate number, and contacting a user device of the owner requesting the digital driver’s license. The methods may identify owner based on media or technology within the car.

“The details of one or more embodiments of the subject matter described in this specification are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features, aspects, and advantages of the subject matter will become apparent from the description, the drawings, and the claims.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving, from a first device, location information indicative of a location of an owner of digital identification information and data indicating permission to share the digital identification information of the owner with an authorized third party; receiving, from a second device, a request for the digital identification information, the request comprising an identifier and location information indicative of a location of a requesting third party; verifying that the received request for digital identification information is a request for the digital identification information assigned to the owner by: comparing the location of the requester and the location of the owner, and determining the location of the requester and the location of the owner satisfies a threshold distance; and transmitting, responsive to verifying that the received request for digital identification information is a request for the digital identification information assigned to the owner, the requested digital identification information to the second device of the requesting third party.

“2. The method of claim 1, further comprising in response to receiving the data indicating permission to share the digital identification information of the owner with an authorized third party, adding the location information and the permission to share the digital identification information for the owner to a list of pre-authorizations.

“3. The method of claim 2, wherein verifying that the received request for digital identification information is a request for the digital identification information assigned to the owner comprises comparing the identifier received with the request with entries in the list of pre-authorizations.

“4. The method of claim 2, further comprising assigning a time limit to the permission to share the digital identification information for the owner.

“5. The method of claim 4, wherein verifying that the received request for digital identification information is a request for the digital identification information assigned to the owner comprises determining that the time limit has not expired.

“6. The method of claim 1, wherein the requested digital identification information, when received by the second device, causes the second device to render an image of a digital identification of the owner on a display of the second device.

“7. The method of claim 6, wherein the image of the digital identification allows the requesting third party to verify at least one of: an age or an identity.

“8. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifier comprises a license plate number.

“9. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifier comprises a bar code.

“10. A non-transitory computer storage medium encoded with computer program instructions that when executed by one or more computers cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising: receiving, from a first device, location information indicative of a location of an owner of digital identification information and data indicating permission to share the digital identification information of the owner with an authorized third party; receiving, from a second device, a request for the digital identification information, the request comprising an identifier and location information indicative of a location of a requesting third party; verifying that the received request for digital identification information is a request for the digital identification information assigned to the owner by: comparing the location of the requester and the location of the owner, and determining the location of the requester and the location of the owner satisfies a threshold distance; and transmitting, responsive to verifying that the received request for digital identification information is a request for the digital identification information assigned to the owner, the requested digital identification information to the second device of the requesting third party.

“11. The medium of claim 10, further comprising in response to receiving the data indicating permission to share the digital identification information of the owner with an authorized third party, adding the location information and the permission to share the digital identification information for the owner to a list of pre-authorizations.

“12. The medium of claim 11, wherein verifying that the received request for digital identification information is a request for the digital identification information assigned to the owner comprises comparing the identifier received with the request with entries in the list of pre-authorizations.

“13. The medium of claim 12, further comprising assigning a time limit to the permission to share the digital identification information for the owner.

“14. The medium of claim 13, wherein verifying that the received request for digital identification information is a request for the digital identification information assigned to the owner comprises determining that the time limit has not expired.

“15. The medium of claim 10, wherein the requested digital identification information, when received by the second device, causes the second device to render an image of a digital identification of the owner on a display of the second device.

“16. The medium of claim 15, wherein the image of the digital identification allows the requesting third party to verify at least one of: an age or an identity.

“17. The medium of claim 10, wherein the identifier comprises a license plate number.

“18. The medium of claim 10, wherein the identifier comprises a bar code.

“19. A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving, from a first device, a request for digital identification information, the request comprising an identifier and location information indicative of a location of a requester; determining if digital identification information has been assigned to an owner of the identifier; responsive to determining that digital identification information has been assigned to the owner, receiving, from a second device, location information indicative of a location of an owner of the digital identification information; transmitting the requested digital identification information to the first device of the requester; and detecting that the first device has captured an image of the digital identification information; and sending, to the second device, an alert indicating that potential identify theft and unlicensed capturing of sensitive information has occurred.

“20. The method of claim 19, further comprising verifying that the received request for digital identification information is a request for the digital identification information assigned to the owner by: comparing the location of the requester and the location of the owner, and determining the location of the requester and the location of the owner satisfies a threshold distance.”

For more information, see this patent: Anaruk, Andrew L. Digital identification system. U.S. Patent Number 11539703, filed December 3, 2020, and published online on December 27, 2022. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11539703)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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