Patent Issued for Security sharing systems and methods (USPTO 11854370): United Services Automobile Association

2024 JAN 12 (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 Dixon, David Patrick (Boerne, TX, US), Dziuk, Janelle Denice (Falls City, TX, US), Guerra, Oscar (San Antonio, TX, US), Khmelev, Yevgeniy Viatcheslavovich (San Antonio, TX, US), Philbrick, Ashley Raine (San Antonio, TX, US), Pollack, Jeffrey Neal (San Antonio, TX, US), Russell, Ryan Thomas (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on May 23, 2022, was published online on December 26, 2023.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11854370, is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “The present disclosure generally relates to home automation and monitoring, and more particularly, data sharing between home automation and/or home monitoring devices.

“Home automation and/or monitoring electronic devices, such as video-enabled doorbells, camera or video-enabled toys, motion detecting electronic devices, audio detecting electronic devices, or the like, are sometimes positioned within and/or around homes in neighborhoods, or within and/or around communities (e.g., in public shopping areas, such as a security video camera). Further, these devices increasingly use artificial intelligence, machine learning, and/or other analysis techniques to analyze image data, video data, audio data, and/or other sensor data gathered (e.g., recorded data set(s)), and determine from the analysis whether activity is occurring within the monitored area. However these devices do not yet communicate with devices not owned by a common entity. For example, a device owned by a first operator does not communicate with a device owned by a second operator. Consequently, abnormal patterns, alerts, and/or monitoring data are inefficiently used to monitor a home and/or a community space because there is no way to automatically aggregate monitoring data, nor provide a platform for automatic and collective analysis of the aggregated data.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “One or more specific embodiments of the present disclosure will be described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, all features of an actual implementation may not be described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers’ specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.

“When introducing elements of various embodiments of the present disclosure, the articles “a,” “an,” and “the” are intended to mean that there are one or more of the elements. The terms “comprising,” “including,” and “having” are intended to be inclusive and mean that there may be additional elements other than the listed elements. Additionally, it should be understood that references to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” of the present disclosure are not intended to be interpreted as excluding the existence of additional embodiments that also incorporate the recited features.

“Home and business owners may monitor and/or enhance their respective personal properties using electronic networked monitoring devices, such as surveillance cameras, video-enabled doorbells, audio-enabled recording and/or listening devices, smart-enabled outlets, home- or commercial-automation devices, or the like. These networked monitoring devices may communicatively couple to proprietary software and perform operations related to the proprietary software (e.g., a video-enabled doorbell may upload a recorded image in response to an operator instructing the hardware to upload the image to the proprietary software). Furthermore, the networked monitoring devices may couple to a communication network (e.g., wired network, wireless network) and may transmit owned information (recorded data sets, generated alerts, indications of detected activity (e.g., may or may not correspond to an alert, or the like) via the communication network. The owned information may generally refer to data or information gathered via the networked monitoring devices, and thus the data or information gathered may belong to an owner of the networked monitoring device (e.g., owned information).

“It may be advantageous to cross-reference owned information between the networked monitoring devices and/or between monitoring systems of networked monitoring devices. Operation and/or monitoring of a home (or business and/or community-region) may improve from this comparison of owned information. For example, operation and/or monitoring of a home may improve from referencing a first recorded data set (or alert) and comparing the first recorded data set (or alert) to a second recorded data set (or alert), where the first and second recorded data sets (or alerts) may be from any of the networked monitoring devices.

“The above-described systems and methods may be an improvement to monitoring systems that use networked monitoring devices, such as home automation systems and/or home monitoring systems. Each networked monitoring device may be communicatively coupled to an aggregation software managed by a common provider, referred to herein as a central control system. Activity monitored, and captured in the recorded data sets, via networked monitoring devices of a first monitoring system may be shared with the central control system. It is noted that examples used herein usually refer to recorded data sets and alerts as examples of owned information transmitted to the central control system, but it should be understood that a variety of suitable data may transmit between monitoring systems and the central control system. Each respective networked monitoring device may correspond to sharing preferences (e.g., permissions) that the central control system may interpret to determine mutual permissions between networked monitoring devices and/or between monitoring systems. Permissions of each monitoring system may be established between the central control system and the monitoring system, such as by way of agreement, contract, legal agreement, legal contract, user agreement, or the like. Additionally or alternatively, the permissions may be settings that may change over a lifetime and/or operation duration of the monitoring system, such as in response to a trigger event (e.g., a threshold number of locally-detected events) and/or in response to operator input. Furthermore, occupants of a household, or a household as a whole, may each correspond to a profile maintained for that operator. Each profile may include indications of these permissions. Profiles may also indicate a ranking of priority of household occupants such as to provide a system to provide seniority to defining permissions of a household monitoring system.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A security sharing system, comprising: a first monitoring system associated with a first set of data sharing permissions; and a central control system configured to: receive a first alert regarding the first monitoring system, wherein the first alert indicates that an abnormal event, nefarious event, or otherwise detectable operation was detected via the first monitoring system; determine that a neighbor device is assigned to the first monitoring system; determine a permission to share a recorded data set pertaining to the first alert based on the first set of data sharing permissions and a current time; determine that sharing a recorded data set from the first monitoring system associated with the first alert is permitted based on the permission; based upon the sharing being permitted, share the recorded data set at least in part by transmitting the recorded data set from the first monitoring system to the neighbor device; probe the first monitoring system for a locally-stored historical alert log associated with a current time in response to receiving the first alert; associate the locally-stored historical alert log with a larger data set associated with the first alert to generate an alert-data correlation data set; save, in a data store, the alert-data correlation data set; receive a second alert; determine whether one or more properties of the second alert are substantially similar to one or more properties of at least one respective alert from the alert-data correlation data set; elevate a priority of the second alert and a priority of the at least one respective alert in response to determining that one or more properties are substantially similar between the second alert and the at least one respective alert; and notify the first monitoring system of the elevated priority of the at least one respective alert.

“2. The security sharing system of claim 1, wherein the central control system is configured to transmit an indication of the first alert in response to determining that the neighbor device is assigned to the first monitoring system.

“3. The security sharing system of claim 1, wherein the central control system is configured to transmit an indication of the first alert to the neighbor device and to a household member device.

“4. The security sharing system of claim 1, wherein the central control system is configured to determine that the neighbor device is assigned to the first monitoring system based on an indication of a duration of time that the neighbor device is assigned to the first monitoring system.

“5. The security sharing system of claim 4, wherein the duration of time that the neighbor device is assigned to the first monitoring system corresponds to a duration of time that a member associated with the first monitoring system is on vacation.

“6. The security sharing system of claim 1, wherein the otherwise detectable operation corresponds to a motion detector sensing motion associated with an animal escaping, a package being delivered, or both.

“7. The security sharing system of claim 1, wherein the central control system is configured to extract the recorded data set from a data set on behalf of the first monitoring system based on a current time.

“8. A method, comprising: receiving a first alert regarding a first monitoring system, wherein the first alert indicates that an abnormal event, nefarious event, or otherwise detectable operation was detected via the first monitoring system; determining that a neighbor device is assigned to the first monitoring system; determining a permission to share a recorded data set pertaining to the first alert based on the first set of data sharing permissions and a current time; determining that sharing a recorded data set from the first monitoring system associated with the first alert is permitted based on the permission; based upon the sharing being permitted, sharing the recorded data set at least in part by transmitting the recorded data set from the first monitoring system to the neighbor device; probing the first monitoring system for a locally-stored historical alert log associated with a current time in response to receiving the first alert; associating the locally-stored historical alert log with a larger data set associated with the first alert to generate an alert-data correlation data set; saving, in a data store, the alert-data correlation data set receiving a second alert; determining whether one or more properties of the second alert are substantially similar to one or more properties of at least one respective alert from the alert-data correlation data set; elevating a priority of the second alert and a priority of the at least one respective alert in response to determining that one or more properties are substantially similar between the second alert and the at least one respective alert; and notifying the first monitoring system of the elevated priority of the at least one respective alert.

“9. The method of claim 8, comprising transmitting an indication of the first alert to the neighbor device and to a household member device.

“10. The method of claim 8, wherein determining the permission based on the first set of data sharing permissions and a current time comprises determining the permission based on the first set of data sharing permissions, the current time, and an indication of a duration of time that the neighbor device is assigned to the first monitoring system.

“11. The method of claim 8, wherein the at least a portion of the recorded data set comprises an image, video-recording, audio-recording, or any combination of the image, the video-recording, and the audio-recording, corresponding to the first alert.

“12. The method of claim 8, comprising sharing the at least a portion of the recorded data set with a second monitoring system corresponding associated with the neighbor device.

“13. A security sharing system, comprising: a first monitoring system associated with a first set of data sharing permissions; a second monitoring system associated with a neighbor device; and a control system configured to: receive a first alert regarding the first monitoring system, wherein the first alert indicates that an abnormal event, nefarious event, or otherwise detectable operation was detected via the first monitoring system; determine that the neighbor device is assigned to the first monitoring system; determine a permission to share a recorded data set pertaining to the first alert based on the first set of data sharing permissions and a current time; determine that sharing the first alert from the first monitoring system to the second monitoring system, the neighbor device, or both the second monitoring system and the neighbor device is permitted based on the permission; share the first alert at least in part by transmitting a recorded data set corresponding to the first alert, transmitting an indication of the first alert, or both transmitting the recorded data set and transmitting the indication of the first alert from the first monitoring system to the second monitoring system, the neighbor device, or both the second monitoring system and the neighbor device; probe the first monitoring system for a locally-stored historical alert log associated with a current time in response to receiving the first alert; associate the locally-stored historical alert log with a larger data set associated with the first alert to generate an alert-data correlation data set; save, in a data store, the alert-data correlation data set; receive a second alert; determine whether one or more properties of the second alert are substantially similar to one or more properties of at least one respective alert from the alert-data correlation data set; elevate a priority of the second alert and a priority of the at least one respective alert in response to determining that one or more properties are substantially similar between the second alert and the at least one respective alert; and notify the first monitoring system of the elevated priority of the at least one respective alert.

“14. The security sharing system of claim 13, comprising: a third monitoring system associated with a second set of data sharing permissions different from the first set of data sharing permissions, wherein the control system is configured to determine that the neighbor device is not permitted to receive data from the third monitoring system based on the second set of data sharing permissions.

“15. The security sharing system of claim 13, wherein the control system is configured to elevate a priority of the first alert based on comparing one or more properties of the first alert to one or more properties of previously received alerts.

“16. The security sharing system of claim 13, wherein the control system is configured to store an indication of one or more properties of the first alert in storage comprising indications of one or more properties of previously received alerts.

“17. The security sharing system of claim 13, wherein the control system is configured to transmit the indication of the first alert to the neighbor device and to a household member device associated with the first monitoring system.

“18. The security sharing system of claim 13, wherein the control system is configured to determine the permission based on the first set of data sharing permissions and a current time comprises determining the permission based on the first set of data sharing permissions, the current time, and an indication of a duration of time that the neighbor device is assigned to the first monitoring system.”

For more information, see this patent: Dixon, David Patrick. Security sharing systems and methods. U.S. Patent Number 11854370, filed May 23, 2022, and published online on December 26, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11854370)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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