Patent Issued for System and method for identifying cabinetry (USPTO 11709916): State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

2023 AUG 15 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Binion, Todd (Bloomington, IL, US), Mast, Joshua M. (Bloomington, IL, US), Wyrick, Jeffrey (Bloomington, IL, US), filed on August 24, 2020, was published online on July 25, 2023.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11709916 is State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Generally, if cabinetry in a home or property becomes damaged, the homeowner seeks to repair or replace the damaged cabinetry. However, often only a portion of the cabinets in a room may be damaged. For example, an individual cabinet among several cabinets in a kitchen may need repair. If the homeowner, or a claim representative of the homeowner’s insurance provider, cannot locate a replacement cabinet or cabinet product matching the other cabinets, a homeowner may need to replace all of the cabinets, resulting in increased expense.

“Manually identifying a cabinetry product can be a difficult task requiring substantial training and experience. While some experienced professionals may be able to identify a “match” with an existing product (i.e., an exact match or a similar replacement product) with fairly high confidence, it may be costly, time consuming, or otherwise not feasible to access such professionals. Further, while object recognition software may be capable of identifying that an object in a photograph is a cabinet, current systems are not capable of identifying a precise cabinet product (e.g., of a specific manufacturer or brand).

“Accordingly, there is an opportunity for techniques to automatically identify cabinet products.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In one embodiment, a computer-implemented method of cabinet product identification is provided. The method includes receiving, from an electronic device via a network connection, at least one digital image depicting a cabinet. The method also includes analyzing, by one or more processors, the at least one digital image to determine a first set of characteristics of the cabinet. The method further includes accessing, by the one or more processors from memory, a second set of characteristics corresponding to a plurality of cabinet products and comparing the first set of characteristics to the second set of characteristics to identify a cabinet product of the plurality of cabinet products that matches the cabinet. Further, the method includes transmitting, to the electronic device via the network connection, an indication of the cabinet product.

“In another embodiment, a computing system for cabinet product identification is provided. The computing system includes a transceiver in communication with an electronic device via a network connection, one or more processors, and a program memory storing instructions. When executed by the one or more processors, the instructions cause the one or more processors to: (1) receive, from an electronic device via the transceiver, at least one digital image depicting a cabinet; (2) analyze the at least one digital image to determine a first set of characteristics of the cabinet; (3) access from memory a second set of characteristics corresponding to a plurality of cabinet products; (4) compare the first set of characteristics to the second set of characteristics to identify a cabinet product of the plurality of cabinet products that matches the cabinet; and (5) transmit, to the electronic device via the transceiver, an indication of the cabinet product.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method of cabinet product identification, the method comprising: receiving, from an electronic device via a network connection, at least one digital image depicting a cabinet; analyzing, by one or more processors, the at least one digital image to determine a first set of characteristics of the cabinet; accessing, by the one or more processors from memory, a second set of characteristics corresponding to a plurality of cabinet products; comparing, by the one or more processors, the first set of characteristics to the second set of characteristics to identify a cabinet product of the plurality of cabinet products that matches the cabinet; and transmitting, to the electronic device via the network connection, an indication of the cabinet product.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the at least one digital image: analyzing the at least one digital image to determine one or more of: a material type, a manufacturer, a brand, a cabinet measurement, a door measurement, a door style, a molding style, a type of hinge, a hinge location, a hardware location, or a frame style.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the at least one digital image includes: analyzing the at least one digital image to determine whether the cabinet is a custom cabinet or a pre-fabricated cabinet.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein receiving the at least one digital image includes: receiving the at least one digital image from a camera of the electronic device that captured the at least one digital image depicting the cabinet.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: determining, by the one or more processors, a retail store or a website where the cabinet product is available for purchase; and transmitting, to the electronic device via the network connection, an indication of the retail store or the website.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein receiving the at least one digital image includes: transmitting, to the electronic device via the network connection, a request for a digital image depicting a particular view of the cabinet; receiving, in response to transmitting the request, the at least one digital image.

“7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the at least one digital image includes: analyzing the at least one digital image using a machine learning model.

“8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein comparing the first set of characteristics to the second set of characteristics includes: analyzing the first set of characteristics using a machine learning model trained using one or more of the second set of characteristics or image data including the plurality of cabinet products.

“9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein analyzing the at least one digital image includes: analyzing the at least one digital image using the machine learning model.

“10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: transmitting, to the electronic device via the network connection, an indication of one or more characteristics of the first set of characteristics.

“11. A computing system for cabinet product identification, the computing system comprising: a transceiver in communication with an electronic device via a network connection; one or more processors; and a program memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to: receive, from an electronic device via the transceiver, at least one digital image depicting a cabinet; analyze the at least one digital image to determine a first set of characteristics of the cabinet; access from memory a second set of characteristics corresponding to a plurality of cabinet products; compare the first set of characteristics to the second set of characteristics to identify a cabinet product of the plurality of cabinet products that matches the cabinet; and transmit, to the electronic device via the transceiver, an indication of the cabinet product.

“12. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to analyze the at least one digital image by: analyzing the at least one digital image to determine one or more of: a material type, a manufacturer, a brand, a cabinet measurement, a door measurement, a door style, a molding style, a type of hinge, a hinge location, a hardware location, or a frame style.

“13. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to analyze the at least one digital image by: analyzing the at least one digital image to determine whether the cabinet is a custom cabinet or a pre-fabricated cabinet.

“14. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to receive the at least one digital image by: receiving the at least one digital image from a camera of the electronic device that captured the at least one digital image depicting the cabinet.

“15. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processors to: determine a retail store or a website where the cabinet product is available for purchase; and transmit, to the electronic device via the network connection, an indication of the retail store or the website.

“16. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to receive the at least one digital image by: transmitting, to the electronic device via the network connection, a request for a digital image depicting a particular view of the cabinet; receiving, in response to transmitting the request, the at least one digital image.

“17. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to analyze the at least one digital image by: analyzing the at least one digital image using a machine learning model.

“18. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to compare the first set of characteristics to the second set of characteristics by: analyzing the first set of characteristics using a machine learning model trained using one or more of the second set of characteristics or image data including the plurality of cabinet products.

“19. The system of claim 18, wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to analyze the at least digital image by: analyzing the at least one digital image using the machine learning model.

“20. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processors to: transmit, to the electronic device via the network connection, an indication of one or more characteristics of the first set of characteristics.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Binion, Todd. System and method for identifying cabinetry. U.S. Patent Number 11709916, filed August 24, 2020, and published online on July 25, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11709916)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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