Patent Issued for Managing user information-data type extension (USPTO 11404146): Apple Inc.

2022 AUG 22 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Apple Inc. (Cupertino, California, United States) has been issued patent number 11404146, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Block, Eliza C. (San Francisco, CA, US), Keen, Daniel S. (San Jose, CA, US), Tribble, Guy L. (Hillsborough, CA, US).

This patent was filed on September 29, 2014 and was published online on August 2, 2022.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “People are becoming more and more aware of the importance of regular exercise for maintaining one’s health. Additionally, a plethora of electronic devices are now available that can track a person’s physical activity throughout the day. Such devices can connect or otherwise communicate with other mobile devices, for example, to help track, manage, and/or analyze data associated with the person’s physical activity. However, health and activity data continues to be considered extremely personal and often times confidential. As such, developers and device manufacturers continue to identify challenges when providing applications and/or devices for collecting and sharing a user’s health information.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE

“Embodiments of the present disclosure can provide systems, methods, and computer-readable medium for managing user information (e.g., personal information collected by one or more external devices). In some examples, a data interchange may be managed that enables and/or allows third-party applications to provide user information to the data interchange and potentially retrieve user information provided by other third-party applications. While managed, the data interchange may be configured to provide access to particular data types of the user data based at least in part on authorization from the user associated with the data.

“According to one embodiment, a method may be executed by a computer system to at least maintain a plurality of data types. The method may also cause the computer system to enable storage, on a user device, of first health information associated with at least a subset of the plurality of data types. The computer system may identify a new data type being requested for use by a third-party application of the user device. The method may also cause the computer system to provide data to the user device that identifies information about the new data type. In some examples, the computer system may publish the information about the new data type. The computer system may also cause a background process of the user device to interpret the data for configuring the user device to implement the new data type, and enable the background process of the user device to manage second health information corresponding to the new data type at least in response to a request, from the third-party application, that includes the information about the new data type.

“In some cases, the information about the new data type may be published to a network resource for developers associated with the computer system. The information about the new data type may include an identifier, a name, a type, and/or a description, and the type may comprise at least a cumulative type or a discrete type. In some examples, the method may also cause the computer system to update the plurality of maintained data types to include the new data type. The request from the third-party application may comprise an application programming interface method call.

“According to another embodiment, a system may be implemented as a computing device configured with a memory and a processor. The processor may be configured to execute instructions stored on the memory to configure the memory to provide a first set of data types to a user device. The processor may also be configured to execute the instructions to identify a new data type not included in the first set of data types, and provide data for the user device to download, the data including information about the new data type. The processor may also be configured to execute the instructions to provide, to an application, a format for managing health data corresponding to the new data type, and cause the user device to implement the new data type based at least in part on a request using the format from the application.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: maintaining, by a computer system, a plurality of data types associated with data collected by a data collection accessory and stored on a user device in communication with the data collection accessory, the data collection accessory linked to a third-party application of the user device; transmitting, by the computer system, first health information associated with at least a subset of the plurality of data types for storage on the user device; receiving, from the user device, an indication of receipt of new health information corresponding to a new data type received by the user device from the third-party application, the user device configured to store the new health information on behalf of the third-party application; receiving, from the user device, an indication of a third-party application request, to the user device, for the new health information that corresponds to the new data type, the third-party application request including information about the new data type; identifying that the new data type being requested for use by the third-party application of the user device is not one of the plurality of data types; and providing an asset download to the user device for a background process of the user device to interpret and for configuring the background process of the user device to implement the new data type and manage the new health information corresponding to the new data type at least in response to the third-party application request, the asset download identifying the information about the new data type.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising publishing the information to a public resource that comprises a network resource for developers associated with the computer system.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising updating the plurality of maintained data types to include the new data type.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the information about the new data type includes at least one of an identifier, a name, a type, or a description.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the type comprises at least a cumulative type or a discrete type.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the request, from the third-party application, comprises an application programming interface method call.

“7. A system, comprising: a memory configured to store computer-executable instructions; and a processor in communication with the memory configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to at least: maintain a plurality of data types associated with data collected by a data collection accessory and stored on a user device in communication with the data collection accessory, the data collection accessory linked to a third-party application of the user device; provide, to a user device, the plurality of data types and first health information associated at least a subset of the plurality of data types for storage on the user device; receive, from the user device, an indication of receipt of new health information corresponding to a new data type received by the user device from a third-party application; receive, from the user device, an indication of a third-party application request, to the user device, for the new health information that corresponds to the new data type; identify that the new data type being requested by the third-party application is not included in the plurality of data types; provide, to the third-party application, a format for managing health data corresponding to the new data type; and provide an asset download to the user device for a background process of the user device to interpret, for configuring the background process of the user device to implement the new data type based at least in part on the third-party application request using the format from the third-party application, and to manage the new health information corresponding to the new data type at least in response to the third-party application request, the asset download including information about the new data type.

“8. The system of claim 7, wherein the processor is further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to at least publish the information about the new data type to a network resource.

“9. The system of claim 8, wherein the information about the new data type is published to the network resource after the asset download is provided for the user device to download.

“10. The system of claim 9, wherein the processor is further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to at least cause the user device to return an error message when the request using the format is received before the asset download is downloaded by the device.

“11. The system of claim 7, wherein the plurality of data types is provided to the user device as part of a new software release for the user device.

“12. The system of claim 7, wherein managing the health data comprises at least one of reading the health data corresponding to the new data type from the user device or writing the health data corresponding to the new data type to the user device.

“13. The system of claim 7, wherein the user device implements the new data type by executing the background process of the user device to interpret the asset download for registering the new data type with the background process.

“14. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor of a user device, configure the processor to perform operations comprising: receiving, from a data collection accessory, health data-linked to a third-party application executed by the user device; receiving, from a service provider, instructions for implementing a background process of the user device configured to manage a plurality of data types associated with the data collected by the data collection accessory and stored on the user device in communication with the data collection accessory; storing, on the user device, first health information associated with at least a subset of the plurality of data types; receiving, from the third-party application executed by the user device, new health information corresponding to a new data type that is not included in the plurality of data types; storing, by the background process, the new health information on behalf of the third-party application; receiving, from the third-party application, a request to access the new health information corresponding to the new data type; transmitting, to the service provider, an indication that the third-party application is requesting the new health information; in response to service provider identifying that the new data type being requested for use by the third-party application is not one of the plurality of data types, receiving, from the service provider, a data download that includes information about the new data type; and providing, to the third-party application, the new health information corresponding to the new data type based at least in part on interpreting the received data download.

“15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise registering the new data type with the background process prior to receiving the request to access the new health information corresponding to the new data type.

“16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise enabling the service provider to identify the new data type from a network source updated by developers.

“17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise enabling the service provider to publish the information about the new data type.

“18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the information about the new data type includes at least one of an identifier, a name, a type, or a description.

“19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the request to access the data corresponding to the new data type comprises an application programming interface method call received from the application.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Block, Eliza C. Managing user information-data type extension. U.S. Patent Number 11404146, filed September 29, 2014, and published online on August 2, 2022. 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=11404146.PN.&OS=PN/11404146RS=PN/11404146

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