Patent Issued for System, method, and non-transitory computer-readable media for integrated transactions (USPTO 11328345): United Services Automobile Association

2022 MAY 31 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Halsey, Shelly Dieckow (La Vernia, TX, US), McCroskey, Laura Elizabeth (San Antonio, TX, US), Medrano, Josh Jason (San Antonio, TX, US), O’Sullivan, Cathy F. (San Antonio, TX, US), Tarrillion, Ann C. (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on September 10, 2020, was published online on May 10, 2022.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11328345 is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Typically, purchasing a vehicle or other expensive item may be a stressful experience for an individual. The potential purchaser walking through a showroom or a vehicle sales lot may be confronted with sales personnel whose goal is to maximize the sale price and who may not necessarily be focused on the purchaser’s concerns. Moreover, the purchaser may be disadvantaged during negotiations with the seller, given that the purchaser may not have on-site access to objective information that would inform the purchase decision. For these reasons, the purchaser may lack confidence that they are getting the best deal or that their other concerns have been adequately addressed.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Implementations of the present disclosure are generally directed to facilitating and/or optimizing a transaction. More specifically, implementations are directed to providing an integrated transaction interface and platform that integrates information from various data services to provide a centralized hub that facilitates progress through a multi-stage process associated with a transaction to purchase an item.

“In general, innovative aspects of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include operations of: accessing status data describing a status for each stage in a multi-stage process to acquire an item; presenting a first view of a hub interface that includes interface elements that each correspond to a respective stage in the multi-stage process, wherein at least one of the interface elements is presented with at least one presentation characteristic that depends on the status of the stage corresponding to the respective interface element; in response to receiving a selection of an interface element through the hub interface, providing access to a data service associated with the stage corresponding to the selected interface element; and presenting a second view of the hub interface that includes the selected interface element presented with the at least one presentation characteristic altered based on a changed status of the stage corresponding to the selected interface element, wherein the status of stage is changed through the access to the corresponding data service.

“Implementations can optionally include one or more of the following features: the at least one presentation characteristic of the selected interface element includes one or more of a size, a shape, a color, and a position of the selected interface element; the at least one presentation characteristic of the selected interface element includes text data that is presented within the selected interface element; the selected interface element is presented, in the first view, with first text data; the selected interface element is presented, in the second view, with second text data that is different from the first text data; at least a portion of the second text data is generated based on at least one action performed through the corresponding data service; the selected interface element is presented, in the first view, without the text data; the selected interface element is presented, in the second view, with the text data that is generated based on at least one action performed through the corresponding data service; the selected interface element is presented with the at least one presentation characteristic that is altered to indicate a completed status of the stage corresponding to the selected interface element; the access to the data service is provided within a frame of the hub interface; and/or the frame is presented as an expansion of the selected interface element in the hub interface.

“Other implementations of any of the above aspects include corresponding systems, apparatus, and computer programs that are configured to perform the actions of the methods, encoded on computer storage devices. The present disclosure also provides a computer-readable storage medium coupled to one or more processors and having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations in accordance with implementations of the methods provided herein. The present disclosure further provides a system for implementing the methods provided herein. The system includes one or more processors, and a computer-readable storage medium coupled to the one or more processors having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations in accordance with implementations of the methods provided herein.

“Implementations of the present disclosure provide one or more of the following technical advantages and improvements over traditional systems. By providing an integrated user experience for managing a transaction, or multiple transactions, for an item purchase, implementations avoid the expenditure of processing capacity, network bandwidth, active memory, storage capacity, and/or other computing resources that would otherwise be spent by previously available solutions in which multiple, different, and separate interfaces are provided to a user to facilitate their purchase transaction and the various ancillary transactions associated with the purchase. Moreover, by presenting interface elements with displayed characteristics corresponding to the status of the particular stages associated with the interface elements, implementations provide a user experience that is more efficient and easier to navigate, by a user, compared to previously available solutions. Accordingly, implementations avoid the expenditure of computing resources that previously available solutions expend to handle, and recover from, user errors and/or user indecision in interface navigation caused by a confusing user experience that does not adequately guide and direct the user’s attention. The implementations described herein more effectively guide and direct the user’s attention by altering the displayed characteristics of the interface elements according to the status of each stage corresponding to a respective interface element.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system, comprising: at least one processor; and a memory communicatively coupled to the at least one processor, the memory storing instructions which, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising: accessing, by a mobile device, status data describing a status for each of one or more stages in a process to acquire a vehicle; presenting, by the mobile device, a first view of a user interface that includes interface elements representing the process, wherein at least one of the interface elements comprises a vehicle search interface element, and wherein, in the first view, the vehicle search interface element is presented according to a first priority with respect to the user interface; determining, by a navigation system of the mobile device, a current location of the mobile device; determining, by the mobile device, that the current location of the mobile device corresponds to a location of a vehicle dealership; and responsive to determining that the current location of the mobile device corresponds to the location of the vehicle dealership, presenting, by the mobile device, a second view of the user interface, wherein in the second view: the vehicle search interface element comprises an indication of one or more vehicles associated with the vehicle dealership, the vehicle search interface is presented according to a second priority with respect to the user interface, and the second priority is higher than the first priority.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein presenting the first view of the user interface comprises presenting the vehicle search interface element at a first position in the user interface, and wherein presenting the second view of the user interface comprises presenting the vehicle search interface element at a second position in the user interface, wherein the first position is different from the second position.

“3. The system of claim 2, wherein among the first position and the second position, the second position is nearer a top of the user interface.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein presenting the first view of the user interface comprises presenting the vehicle search interface element according to a first appearance in the user interface, and wherein presenting the second view of the user interface comprises presenting the vehicle search interface element according to a second appearance in the user interface, wherein the first appearance is different from the second appearance.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein presenting the vehicle search interface element according to the second appearance in the user interface comprises highlighting a visual representation of the vehicle search interface element in the second view relative to a visual representation of the vehicle search interface element in the first view.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the one or more vehicles associated with the vehicle dealership is a respective vehicle that is in stock in the vehicle dealership.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the one or more vehicles associated with the vehicle dealership is a respective vehicle that is available for purchase at the vehicle dealership.

“8. A computer-implemented method performed by at least one processor, the method comprising: accessing, by a mobile device, status data describing a status for each of one or more stages in a process to acquire a vehicle; presenting, by the mobile device, a first view of a user interface that includes interface elements representing the process, wherein at least one of the interface elements comprises a vehicle search interface element, and wherein, in the first view, the vehicle search interface element is presented according to a first priority with respect to the user interface; determining, by a navigation system of the mobile device, a current location of the mobile device; determining, by the mobile device, that the current location of the mobile device corresponds to a location of a vehicle dealership; and responsive to determining that the current location of the mobile device corresponds to the location of the vehicle dealership, presenting, by the mobile device, a second view of the user interface, wherein in the second view: the vehicle search interface element comprises an indication of one or more vehicles associated with the vehicle dealership, the vehicle search interface is presented according to a second priority with respect to the user interface, and the second priority is higher than the first priority.

“9. The method of claim 8, wherein presenting the first view of the user interface comprises presenting the vehicle search interface element at a first position in the user interface, and wherein presenting the second view of the user interface comprises presenting the vehicle search interface element at a second position in the user interface, wherein the first position is different from the second position.

“10. The method of claim 9, wherein among the first position and the second position, the second position is nearer a top of the user interface.

“11. The method of claim 8, wherein presenting the first view of the user interface comprises presenting the vehicle search interface element according to a first appearance in the user interface, and wherein presenting the second view of the user interface comprises presenting the vehicle search interface element according to a second appearance in the user interface, wherein the first appearance is different from the second appearance.

“12. The method of claim 8, wherein presenting the vehicle search interface element according to the second appearance in the user interface comprises highlighting a visual representation of the vehicle search interface element in the second view relative to a visual representation of the vehicle search interface element in the first view.

“13. The method of claim 8, wherein each of the one or more vehicles associated with the vehicle dealership is a respective vehicle that is in stock in the vehicle dealership.

“14. The method of claim 8, wherein each of the one or more vehicles associated with the vehicle dealership is a respective vehicle that is available for purchase at the vehicle dealership.

“15. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions which, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising: accessing, by a mobile device, status data describing a status for each of one or more stages in a process to acquire a vehicle; presenting, by the mobile device, a first view of a user interface that includes interface elements representing the process, wherein at least one of the interface elements comprises a vehicle search interface element, and wherein, in the first view, the vehicle search interface element is presented according to a first priority with respect to the user interface; determining, by a navigation system of the mobile device, a current location of the mobile device; determining, by the mobile device, that the current location of the mobile device corresponds to a location of a vehicle dealership; and responsive to determining that the current location of the mobile device corresponds to the location of the vehicle dealership, presenting, by the mobile device, a second view of the user interface, wherein in the second view: the vehicle search interface element comprises an indication of one or more vehicles associated with the vehicle dealership, the vehicle search interface is presented according to a second priority with respect to the user interface, and the second priority is higher than the first priority.

“16. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein presenting the first view of the user interface comprises presenting the vehicle search interface element at a first position in the user interface, and wherein presenting the second view of the user interface comprises presenting the vehicle search interface element at a second position in the user interface, wherein the first position is different from the second position.

“17. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 16, wherein among the first position and the second position, the second position is nearer a top of the user interface.

“18. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein presenting the first view of the user interface comprises presenting the vehicle search interface element according to a first appearance in the user interface, and wherein presenting the second view of the user interface comprises presenting the vehicle search interface element according to a second appearance in the user interface, wherein the first appearance is different from the second appearance.

“19. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein presenting the vehicle search interface element according to the second appearance in the user interface comprises highlighting a visual representation of the vehicle search interface element in the second view relative to a visual representation of the vehicle search interface element in the first view.

“20. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein each of the one or more vehicles associated with the vehicle dealership is a respective vehicle that is in stock in the vehicle dealership.

“21. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein each of the one or more vehicles associated with the vehicle dealership is a respective vehicle that is available for purchase at the vehicle dealership.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Halsey, Shelly Dieckow. System, method, and non-transitory computer-readable media for integrated transactions. U.S. Patent Number 11328345, filed September 10, 2020, and published online on May 10, 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=11328345.PN.&OS=PN/11328345RS=PN/11328345

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