Patent Issued for System and user interface having push-to-talk, outbound dialer, and messaging functions with recipients identified using a proxy alias (USPTO 11146675): State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

2021 NOV 01 (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 Acosta, Cesar Bryan (Atlanta, GA, US), Chickoree, Christopher (Atlanta, GA, US), Loreti, Julian (Brookhaven, GA, US), Ozgener, Emre (Atlanta, GA, US), Rothlingshofer, Tobiah (Gainesville, GA, US), Schneck, Alexander Ralph (Roswell, GA, US), St James, Mercy (Flowery Branch, GA, US), Stiles, Steven (Sandy Springs, GA, US), Watt, Andrew J. (Roswell, GA, US), Williams, Garrett Bernard (Snellville, GA, US), Wunderlich, Linda (Buford, GA, US), filed on February 18, 2019, was published online on October 12, 2021.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11146675, is State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “In large communities or enterprise environments, the dissemination of information to individuals or groups of individuals may require maintaining or periodically updating contact information. Contact information for designated recipients in some cases may be outdated. In some cases, such as in emergency and/or disaster relief situations, multiple channels of communication may be needed to ensure that important messages, such as, for example, emergency alert messages, are received by a large number of individuals in a timely and secure manner. In addition, maintaining and transmitting private contact information may require heightened security measures to maintain privacy. In some cases, the communication may require conformance with regulatory requirements such as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. For example, individuals who do not wish to receive alerts (e.g., have opted out of alerts) may need to be proactively excluded from receiving any communication.

“In cases where mass groups of individuals need to be notified, determining which individuals need to be contacted may require acquiring information from multiple sources. In some cases, manual operation of a mass notification system may be required. For some known mass notification systems, a notification message (e.g., alert) may require manual input of each recipient’s contact information. Some mass notification systems may be limited to unidirectional messages of limited content. These mass notification systems may not allow recipients to respond, thereby requiring the recipient to use alternate methods to initiate a response. Accordingly, there exists a need for a communication system that enables bilateral communication, in real time, with mass groups of individuals without compromising the security of each individual’s contact information.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The present embodiments may relate to systems and methods for providing multi-function enterprise communications using user and group aliases. In one embodiment, the enterprise communication system uses an enterprise communication computing device to communicate with recipient computing devices based upon a unique, non-telephonic-based recipient computing device identifier associated with each recipient computing device.

“In one aspect, the enterprise communication (“EC”) computing device may include a processor in communication with a memory device and a communication interface. The communication interface includes a plurality of modules including a telephonic communication module for cellular telephonic communication with remote computing devices. The communication interface also includes a text-based messaging module for cellular text-based communication with remote computing devices. The communication interface further includes a two-way radio communication module for two-way push-to-talk (PTT) communication with remote computing devices.

“The EC processor may be programmed to (i) generate a user interface for execution on the enterprise communication computing device, the user interface including a display with a plurality of icons, each icon representative of a corresponding module of the plurality of modules, (ii) receive, from within the user interface executed on the enterprise communication computing device, a user selection of a first icon of the plurality of icons, the first icon representative of a first module of the plurality of modules, (iii) execute the first module represented by the selected first icon, (iv) receive user input defining a message to be sent using the first module and including one or more user identifiers identifying a respective one or more intended recipients of the message to be sent, (v) transmit, to a remote data source, a query including the one or more user identifiers, (vi) receive, from the remote data source, one or more recipient computing device identifiers of a respective one or more recipient computing devices, each recipient computing device associated with a respective one of the intended recipients of the message to be sent, wherein each recipient identifier includes a unique non-telephonic-based identifier associated with the respective recipient computing device, and (vii) transmit, via the first module, the message to each recipient computing device identified based upon the received recipient computing device identifiers. The EC computing device may be configured to include additional, less, or alternate functionality, including that discussed elsewhere herein.

“In another aspect, a method of enabling communication between an enterprise communication computing device and recipient computing devices based upon a unique, non-telephonic-based recipient computing device identifier associated with each recipient computing device may be provided. The method may be implemented using a centralized server computing device.

“The method may include (i) storing, in a central data source, a data structure associating a plurality of user identifiers with a plurality of user computing devices and associating each user computing device with a respective unique non-telephonic-based device identifier that uniquely identifies the associated recipient computing device, (ii) uploading, to an enterprise communication computing device, an enterprise communication application, wherein execution of the enterprise communication application on the enterprise communication computing device causes the enterprise communication computing device to display a user interface including a plurality of icons, each icon representative of a respective communication interface module of a communication interface of the enterprise communication computing device, (iii) receiving, from the enterprise communication computing device, a query including one or more user identifiers identifying respective one or more intended recipients of a message to be sent from the enterprise communication computing device, (iv) querying the data structure with the one or more user identifiers to retrieve the device identifier associated with each one or more user identifiers, (v) transmitting, to the enterprise communication computing device, a response including each retrieved device identifier, wherein receipt of the response populates a recipient field of the message to be sent with the retrieved device identifiers at the enterprise communication computing device, (vi) receiving, from the enterprise communication computing device, in response to the enterprise communication computing device transmitting the message to each user computing device associated with one of the retrieved device identifiers, a first reporting message including (a) at least one of the message sent by the enterprise communication computing device and a proxy message including at least a portion of content of the message, and (b) a list of the one or more user computing devices to which the message was transmitted, and (vii) storing, in the central data source, the first reporting message in a data location indexed according to a device identifier of the enterprise communication computing device. The computer-implemented method may include additional, less, or alternate functionality, including those discussed elsewhere herein.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. An enterprise communication computing device enabling communication with recipient computing devices based upon a unique, non-telephonic-based recipient computing device identifier associated with each recipient computing device, the enterprise communication computing device comprising a processor in communication with a memory device and a communication interface, wherein said communication interface comprises a plurality of modules comprising: a telephonic communication module for cellular telephonic communication with remote computing devices; a text-based messaging module for cellular text-based communication with remote computing devices; and a two-way radio communication module for two-way push-to-talk (PTT) communication with remote computing devices, wherein said processor is programmed to: generate a user interface for execution on the enterprise communication computing device, the user interface including a display with a plurality of icons, each icon representative of a corresponding module of the plurality of modules; receive, from within the user interface executed on the enterprise communication computing device, a user selection of a first icon of the plurality of icons, the first icon representative of a first module of plurality of modules; execute the first module represented by the selected first icon; receive, via the first module executed on the enterprise communication computing device, user input defining a message to be sent using the first module and including a plurality of user identifiers identifying a respective plurality of intended recipients of the message to be sent; transmit, to a remote data source, a query including the plurality of user identifiers and a request for validation of the plurality of user identifiers; receive, from the remote data source, a subset of a plurality of recipient computing device identifiers of a respective plurality of recipient computing devices, each recipient computing device associated with a respective one of the intended recipients of the message to be sent, wherein each recipient identifier includes a unique non-telephonic-based identifier associated with the respective recipient computing device, wherein the same recipient identifier is used to communicate with the respective recipient computing device using each of the plurality of modules, and wherein only the subset of the plurality of recipient computing device identifiers of a respective subset of the plurality of recipient computing devices associated with respective ones of a validated subset of the plurality of user identifiers are received; and transmit in real-time, via the first module, the message to the plurality of recipient computing devices identified based upon the received recipient computing device identifiers.

“2. The enterprise communication computing device of claim 1, wherein said processor is further programmed to: transmit, to the remote data source, a first reporting message including (i) at least one of the message and a proxy message including at least a portion of content of the message, and (ii) a list of the plurality of recipient computing devices to which the message was transmitted, wherein receipt of the first reporting message causes the remote data source to store the first reporting message in a data location indexed according to an identifier of the enterprise communication computing device.

“3. The enterprise communication computing device of claim 2, wherein said processor is further programmed to: receive, from at least one recipient computing device to which the message was transmitted, a status message including a status indicator indicating whether the message was delivered to the respective intended recipient associated with the at least one recipient computing device; and transmit, to the remote data source, a second reporting message including the list of the one or more recipient computing devices and the associated status indicator for the at least one recipient computing device, wherein receipt of the second reporting message causes the remote data source to retrieve the first reporting message and update the stored first reporting message with the status indicators.

“4. The enterprise communication computing device of claim 1, wherein said processor is further programmed to: download, from the remote data source, an enterprise communication application; and generate the user interface in response to execution of the enterprise communication application.

“5. The enterprise communication computing device of claim 4, wherein said processor is further programmed to: upon a first execution of the enterprise communication application, receive user input indicating user consent from a user of the enterprise communication computing device to transmit and receive messages.

“6. The enterprise communication computing device of claim 1, wherein the first icon includes an icon representative of the telephonic communication module, wherein to execute the first module, said processor is further programmed to execute the telephonic communication module, wherein the message to be sent includes a telephonic communication with the plurality of intended recipients, and wherein to transmit the message to the plurality of recipient computing devices, said processor is further programmed to initiate a cellular telephonic communication with each of the plurality of recipient computing devices over a cellular telephone network.

“7. The enterprise communication computing device of claim 1, wherein the first icon includes an icon representative of the text-based messaging module, wherein to execute the first module, said processor is further programmed to execute the text-based messaging module, wherein the message to be sent includes text-based content, and wherein to transmit the message to the plurality of recipient computing devices, said processor is further programmed to transmit a cellular message including the text-based content to the plurality of recipient computing devices over a cellular network.

“8. The enterprise communication computing device of claim 1, wherein the first icon includes an icon representative of the two-way radio communication module, wherein to execute the first module, said processor is further programmed to execute the two-way radio communication module, wherein the message to be sent includes a radio-based PTT communication with the plurality of intended recipients, and wherein to transmit the message to the plurality of recipient computing devices, said processor is further programmed to initiate a radio-based, two-way PTT communication with each of the plurality of recipient computing devices over one of a cellular telephone network, a radio network, and a cellular data network.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

For more information, see this patent: Acosta, Cesar Bryan. System and user interface having push-to-talk, outbound dialer, and messaging functions with recipients identified using a proxy alias. U.S. Patent Number 11146675, filed February 18, 2019, and published online on October 12, 2021. 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=11146675.PN.&OS=PN/11146675RS=PN/11146675

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