Patent Issued for Fitness systems and methods (USPTO 11844626): Cooper Health and Fitness Applications LLC

2024 JAN 10 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Cooper Health and Fitness Applications LLC (Dallas, Texas, United States) has been issued patent number 11844626, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Cooper, Tyler Clark (Dallas, TX, US), Ussery, III, Terdema (Dallas, TX, US).

This patent was filed on June 22, 2020 and was published online on December 19, 2023.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “The existing fitness or health systems do not provide an accurate measurement of fitness in a standardized and verifiable way. Exercise type measurements such as the number of push up or the time it takes to run a distance provide certain evidence of fitness, but there is no overall measure of fitness or biometric fitness, and none is accurate or verifiable. Physiological or overall determination of fitness can be complex and could involve many different factors. Most of the fitness systems also do not incorporate fitness in the set of medical diagnostics and patient evaluation. Known existing systems have other deficiencies such as being too complex, involving too great a startup effort, and being unable to actually affect fitness by way of its implementation in a practical sense. Existing systems require knowing a multitude of factors from the user, such as drinking, smoking, and eating habits, family medical history, filling out questionnaire etc. in order to make a fitness determination. Other deficiencies relate to the way or mechanism in which the software or system interacts with the users. Such systems can, for example, rely on in-app communications of performance data or status which can create engagement hurdles and isolated silos of interaction or communications. Another potential deficiency in existing system relates to the lack of integration of and management of a group of individuals. Existing system are known to focus on individuals and lack broader integration such as at a company level. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved fitness or health system that addresses at least some of the above problems. There are also other deficiencies that can be remedied based on illustrative descriptions provided herein.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In accordance with principles of the invention, a system for determining physical fitness is contemplated. In one embodiment, the system comprises a device wearable by a user having a sensor configured to conduct a physical measurement of the user. The system also comprises a mobile device including a transceiver configured to receive a physical measurement via a first communications network and transmit data via a second communications network, a geographical position calculating device configured to measure a distance traveled by the user, a timer configured to set a period of time, and a fitness application. The fitness application configures the mobile device to receive a physical measurement from the wearable device and provide options via a user interface to select one or more physical tests to be performed by the user. In response to a selection of the test, the fitness application instructs the mobile device to measure, via the geographical position calculating device, the distance traveled by the user during the performance of the test, measure, via the timer, the time spent by the user during the performance of the test, instruct the wearable device to conduct a physical measurement, and transmit a predicted lung oxygen volume max (pmVO2) or information representative of pmVO2 of the user from the physical test administered by the fitness application to another system.

“In one embodiment, the system further comprises a management computer system that included a database and a central subsystem. The database is configured to store health information of a plurality of individuals and a fitness scale. The health information includes pmVO2s of the individuals and health conditions associated with their pmVO2s and the fitness scale includes multiple grades for classifying the user. The central subsystem is configured to assign a threshold pmVO2 to each grade based on the health information, analyze the pmVO2 or information representative of pmVO2 received from the mobile device in view of the pmVO2 and health information stored in the database, and determine a grade from the fitness scale to classify the user based on the analysis;

“The management system is configured to receive a roster of individuals from an enterprise computer. The individuals on the roster are users of the wearable device and the mobile device and authorized users of the fitness application. The management system is also configured to verify that persons attempting to user the fitness application are authorized users on the roster. The management system is further configured to collect and aggregate the pmVO2 or information representative of pmVO2 of the one or more authorized users in the database and remove information identifying the one or more authorized users so that the pmVO2 or information representative of pmVO2 is saved in the database anonymously. Additionally, the management system is configured to determine a grade using the collected pmVO2 or information representative of pmVO2 and the fitness scale to classify the one or more authorized users.

“In another embodiment, the system further comprises a management computer system that includes a database, a central subsystem, and an artificial intelligence (AI) subsystem. The database is configured to store health information of a plurality of individuals and a fitness scale. The health information includes pmVO2s of the individuals and health conditions associated with their pmVO2s and the fitness scale includes multiple grades for classifying the user. The central subsystem is configured to assign a threshold pmVO2 to each grade based on the health information, analyze the pmVO2 or information representative of pmVO2 received from the mobile device in view of the pmVO2s and health information stored in the database, and determine a grade from the fitness scale to classify the user based on the analysis. The AI subsystem is configured to communicate suggestions via a chatbot that generates natural language messages using the database and the central subsystem. The suggestions include action items to be completed by the user that can move the user from the determined grade to a higher grade.

“The management system is configured to receive a roster of individuals from a computer. The computer may be an enterprise computer of an entity that employs the individuals (employees), a hospital or clinic that provides medical and surgical treatment to the individuals (patients), government that conducts medical testing on the individuals, an insurance company that screens the individuals (e.g., life or health insurance candidates) or has accepted the individuals (e.g., life or health insurance members), or other entities that are made up with other individuals or groups. The individuals can be other group of people and be associated with other entities via other relationships. The individuals are users of the wearable device and the mobile device. The management system is further configured to identify a subset of users that have a fitness grade in the fitness scale that impacts a predicted healthiness of the individuals in the roster as whole and transmit a message containing an alert to the enterprise computer. The management system is further configured to generate and transmit messages containing suggestions provided by the AI subsystem to the mobile devices of the subset of users via the chatbot. The management system is further configured to control the operation of the AI subsystem, chatbot and related generation and transmission of the messages to be directed substantially only to the subset of users relative to the other users from that entity. The management system is further configured to monitor level of activity and fitness grades of the subset of users via the chatbot and fitness application after transmitting the messages containing the suggestions and use the monitored information in the AI subsystem in responding to an individual user’s monitored activity and generating new messages by the chatbot. The management system is further configured to reclassify one or more users in the subset of users that have a new fitness grade that impacts the predicted healthiness to a higher fitness grade based on the monitored activity and fitness grades and remove the one or more reclassified users from the subset.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system for determining physical fitness comprising: a management system including a database and a central subsystem, wherein: the database is configured to store health information of a plurality of individuals and a fitness scale, wherein the health information includes predicted lung oxygen volume maxes (pmV02s) of the individuals and health conditions associated with their pmV02s and the fitness scale includes multiple grades for classifying pmV02 or information representative of pmV02 received from a fitness application; and the central subsystem is configured to assign a threshold pmV02 to each grade based on the health information, analyze pmV02 or information representative of pmV02 received from a fitness application in view of the pmV02s and health conditions stored in the database, and determine a grade from the fitness scale to classify the received pmV02 or information representative of pmV02; wherein the management system is configured to: operate with a mobile device configured to receive a physical measurement from a wearable device, and a timer configured to set a period of time, the wearable device being configured to conduct a physical measurement and transmit the physical measurement to the mobile device; operate with a fitness application that provides options via a user interface allowing selection of one or more physical tests; verify whether persons attempting to use system are authorized users; wherein, in response to a selection of the one or more physical tests on the fitness application, the fitness application communicates with the mobile device to: measure, via the geographical position calculating device, the distance traveled by an authorized user during performance of the selected test; or measure, via the timer, a time spent by an authorized user during performance of the selected test; receive from the wearable device a physical measurement; and transmit a predicted lung oxygen volume max (pmV02) or information representative of pmV02 of the authorized user determined from the performance of the test to the management system; wherein the management system is further configured to: collect and aggregate pmV02s or information representative of pmV02s of one or more participants in the database and remove information identifying the one or more participants so that the pmV02s or information representative of pmV02s of the one or more participants are saved in the database anonymously; determine a grade based on the received pmV02 or information representative of pmV02 and the fitness scale, and classify each of the one or more participants to one of the multiple grades in the fitness scale based on the determined grade; and monitor activities of the one or more participants by monitoring their pmV02s or information representative of pmV02s determined from their performances of the tests provided by the fitness application, and based on the monitoring, focus transmitting messages to authorized.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the management system further includes an artificial intelligence (AI) subsystem that is configured to communicate suggestions via a chatbot that generates natural language messages using the database and the central subsystem.

“3. The system of claim 2, wherein the suggestions include action items to be completed by a participant that can move the user from the determined grade to a higher grade.

“4. The system of claim 3, wherein the management system is further configured to identify a subset of participants that have a fitness grade in the fitness scale that impacts a predicted healthiness of individuals in a roster as whole.

“5. The system of claim 4, wherein the management system is further configured to generate and transmit messages containing suggestions provided by the AI subsystem to the mobile devices of a subset of participants via the chatbot, wherein the management system is configured to control the operation of the AI subsystem, chatbot and related generation and transmission of the messages to be directed substantially only primarily to the subset of participants relative to the other participants.

“6. The system of claim 5, wherein the management system is further configured to monitor level of activity and fitness grades of the subset of participants via the chatbot and fitness application after transmitting the messages containing the suggestions and use the monitored information in the AI subsystem in responding to an individual participant’s monitored activity and generating new messages by the chatbot.

“7. The system of claim 2, wherein the chatbot is configured to communicate with participants without requiring the user to open the fitness application or have it running on the mobile device.

“8. The system according to claim 1, wherein the testing is configured to be conducted at a medical facility using treadmill.

“9. The system according to claim 1, wherein the fitness application is configured to instruct the wearable device to conduct and transmit the measurement upon expiration of a determined period of time.

“10. The system according to claim 1, wherein the fitness application is configured to instruct the wearable device to conduct and transmit the measurement upon completion of the determined distance.

“11. The system according to claim 1, wherein the one or more physical tests include a second physical test requiring the user to travel a distance determined by the fitness application and the total time spent by the user to complete the determined distance is measured by the timer.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Cooper, Tyler Clark. Fitness systems and methods. U.S. Patent Number 11844626, filed June 22, 2020, and published online on December 19, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11844626)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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