Patent Issued for System, method, apparatus, and computer program product for providing mobile device support services (USPTO 11601801): Assurant Inc.

2023 MAR 24 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Conrad, Cassandra G. (Naples, FL, US), Hurst, Cameron E. (Asheville, NC, US), filed on October 19, 2020, was published online on March 7, 2023, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11601801 is assigned to Assurant Inc. (New York, New York, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “As computing technology has continued to advance at a rapid pace, usage of mobile computing devices has become virtually ubiquitous amongst consumers of all socioeconomic classes. Today’s mobile computing devices, including smartphones, tablet computing devices, and the like, possess power and capabilities previously only available on the most powerful personal computers. In particular, many mobile computing platforms, such as Apple iOS®, Android®, Windows® Phone, Blackberry®, and the like now enable users to install a variety of applications on their mobile devices. While in some cases these applications may be curated through application stores, quality and integrity reviews of applications available from application stores may not be able to fully guarantee the safety and interoperability of mobile applications. Further still, in many cases, users may download and install applications on their mobile devices from sources other than curated application stores. As such, the quality and relative safety of using some mobile applications is in question.

“Additionally, as mobile computing devices approach the same processing power and capabilities as personal computers, the phenomenon of taking a factory fresh device that works as advertised and turning it into a device that performs poorly is occurring with increasing frequency. In this regard, users can load too many, badly behaving or malicious applications and turn their previously working device into a device that appears to be failing. As another example, users may install a combination of applications that are not compatible with each other such that device performance may be severely impacted. Consequently there is the emerging tendency for owners of mobile devices to report their devices with hardware failures where there is no failure at all.

“Manufacturers, carriers, mobile network operators, retailers, wholesalers, and other industry providers often carry the financial and customer satisfaction burden resulting from the return of mobile devices with “No Fault Found” or NFF. In most cases, the device must be replaced with a new or refurbished device when the customer is still protected by warranty, extended warranty, insurance, or the like, even if there has not been any hardware failure and the problems experienced by the consumer result entirely from an application(s) installed on the device. In North America and Europe alone this problem is estimated to cost almost $1 billion dollars. The exorbitant cost of the problem of NFF returns results in lower profit margins for industry providers, as well as an increased cost to consumers for mobile devices and mobile device services as a result of industry providers passing on costs of NFF returns to consumers.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “BRIEF SUMMARY OF EXAMPLE EMBODIMENTS

“Systems, methods, apparatuses and computer program products are provided herein for providing mobile device support services. In this regard, some example embodiments reduce the occurrence of NFF returns by diagnosing and providing solutions for non-hardware issues affecting mobile device performance. Some example embodiments additionally facilitate the diagnosis of and provide suggested solutions for hardware issues. The system of some such example embodiments includes a mobile device support apparatus configured to provide for remote monitoring and/or diagnostics for mobile devices. As such, the mobile device support apparatus provided by some example embodiments provides proactive device monitoring to give mobile device users advance notice of and solutions for potential problems identified on their mobile devices. Additionally or alternatively, the mobile device support apparatus of some example embodiments provides a portal which users may access to facilitate diagnosis of problems encountered with their mobile devices.

“Some example embodiments provide a mobile application, which may be implemented on a mobile device. The mobile application of some example embodiments provides a stand-alone application configured to diagnose and provide solutions for issues potentially affecting mobile device performance. Additionally or alternatively, the mobile application of some example embodiments is configured to work in conjunction with a mobile device support apparatus by monitoring mobile device performance and conveying monitored data to the mobile device support apparatus to facilitate remote analysis and diagnosis of any issues potentially affecting mobile device performance.

“Some example embodiments further provide for the identification and elevation of issues that cannot be readily diagnosed and/or that cannot readily be solved without involving a customer service representative and/or that may require physical device repair. In this regard, such example embodiments may facilitate elevation of a support issue to a customer service center such that a human expert that may be more capable of solving a problem may assist a mobile device user. Accordingly, some example embodiments use a combination of remote diagnostic tools, knowledge bases and customer service experts all working in harmony. The system of such example embodiments provides an intelligent engine capable of automatically identifying device performance issues and/or determining the cause of a consumer’s complaint about their device’s behavior and performance and, where possible, to automatically repair the device, obviating the need for the consumer to return the perceived faulty device. Where it is not possible to repair the device automatically using self-help tools, the system of some example embodiments will make recommendations to the user to escalate the session to a human expert that is potentially more capable of solving the problem.

“Some example embodiments also provide a backup and restore functionality for mobile devices. In this regard, some example embodiments provide a mobile device support apparatus configured to maintain a record of applications installed on a mobile device and to facilitate restoration of a mobile device to a last known working condition based on the record and/or to use a record of applications installed on a user’s mobile device to configure a new or replacement mobile device acquired by the user. The backup and restore functionality provided by some such example embodiments additionally provides for restoration of modifications made to applications by the user after original application downloads and/or application configuration settings made by the user, and/or device configuration settings made by the user in addition to installing/re-installing the applications.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. An apparatus comprising at least one processor and at least one memory having program code instructions embodied therein, the at least one memory and program code instructions being configured to, with the at least one processor, direct the apparatus to: receive device status data from a mobile device; determine at least one fault of the mobile device based at least in part on the device status data; initiate a support session, the support session interfacing a customer service representative with a user associated with the mobile device; provide an indication of the at least one fault of the mobile device to the customer service representative during the support session; receive a plurality of solution implementation results data associated with a plurality of other devices, wherein each solution implementation result of the plurality of solution implementation results data indicates whether a previous solution implementation attempted by at least one other device of the plurality of other devices caused resolution of a previous fault of the at least one other device, wherein each solution implementation result of the plurality of solution implementation results data is associated with a device type corresponding to the at least one other device associated with the solution implementation result; determine a first device type associated with the mobile device; aggregate a subset of the plurality of solution implementation results data associated with the first device type to generate aggregated solution implementation results data associated with the first device type; identify at least one solution that caused resolution of the at least one fault or a similar at least one fault based at least in part on the aggregated solution implementation results data; in response to a selection by the customer service representative, cause transmission of computer executable instructions to the mobile device during the support session, the computer executable instructions configured to facilitate resolution of the at least one determined fault on the mobile device; and cause rendering, at the mobile device, of a user interface configured to receive an authorization input from the user, wherein the mobile device automatically initiates the at least one solution in response to receiving the authorization input.

“2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one memory and program code instructions are further configured to, with the at least one processor, direct the apparatus to: receive other device status data from a plurality of mobile devices; and aggregate the device status data received from the plurality of mobile devices, the at least one fault of the mobile device being determined based at least in part on the aggregated device status data.

“3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the device status data comprises information regarding one or more actions taken by the user of the mobile device prior to initiation of the support session, the information regarding the one or more actions comprising one or more of information regarding support information accessed by the user or information regarding one or more corrective actions performed by the user.

“4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the computer executable instructions transmitted to the mobile device are configured to provide the customer service representative remote access to the mobile device.

“5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the computer executable instructions transmitted to the mobile device are configured to provide the customer service representative with remote control of the mobile device.

“6. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the computer executable instructions transmitted to the mobile device are configured to cause execution of one or more diagnostic routines on the mobile device.

“7. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the computer executable instructions transmitted to the mobile device are configured to cause one or more of an installation of one or more applications to the mobile device, an uninstallation of one or more applications of the mobile device, or an altering of one or more device settings of the mobile device.

“8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one memory and program code instructions are further configured to, with the at least one processor, direct the apparatus to: determine whether to initiate the support session based at least in part on determining that a solution cannot be automatically implemented on the mobile device and/or the at least one fault of the mobile device requires implementation assistance beyond the user of the mobile device.

“9. A system comprising the apparatus of claim 1, the system further comprising: the mobile device, wherein the mobile device is configured to, in response to receiving the computer executable instructions, automatically execute the computer executable instructions with or without authorization from the user, wherein the computer executable instructions comprise the at least one solution.

“10. A system comprising the apparatus of claim 1, the system further comprising: the mobile device, wherein the mobile device is configured to render a user interface requesting authorization to initiate the at least one solution; and in response to receiving the authorization, automatically execute the computer executable instructions without additional input from the user.

“11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one memory and program code instructions are further configured to, with the at least one processor, direct the apparatus to: identity a plurality of solution possibilities associated with the at least one fault; and receive, from the customer service representative, the indication of the at least one solution selected from the plurality of solution possibilities.

“12. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein to receive the indication of the at least one solution the apparatus is directed to: automatically identify the at least one solution associated with the at least one fault, and wherein the apparatus causes transmission of the computer executable instructions automatically in response to identifying the at least one solution.

“13. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one memory and program code instructions are further configured to, with the at least one processor, direct the apparatus to: receive an indication of at least one solution associated with the at least one fault via the support session, wherein the transmission of the computer executable instructions is during the support session, and wherein the computer executable instructions cause the mobile device to automatically initiate the at least one solution to resolve the at least one fault, the at least one solution initiated with or without authorization from the user associated with the mobile device.

“14. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein to identify the at least one solution, the apparatus is directed to: determine, for each possible solution of a plurality of possible solutions, at least a portion of the aggregated solution implementation results data corresponding to the possible solution; determine a plurality of solution success probabilities associated with the plurality of possible solutions, the plurality of solution success probabilities comprising a solution success probability associated with each possible solution of the plurality of possible solutions based at least in part on the portion of the aggregated solution implementation results data corresponding to the possible solution; identify, from the plurality of solution success probabilities, a first solution having a highest solution success probability; and select the first solution from the plurality of possible solutions, wherein the at least one solution comprises at least the first solution.

“15. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein to determine the at least one fault the apparatus is directed to: receive a plurality of other device status data associated with a plurality of other devices, each device status data of the plurality of other device status data associated with a device type associated with the other device from which the other device status data is received; determine a first device type associated with the mobile device; aggregate a subset of the plurality of other device status data associated with the first device type to generate aggregated device status data associated with the first device type; and determine the at least one fault of the mobile device based at least in part on a comparison between the aggregated device status data associated with the first device type and the device status data received from the mobile device, wherein the comparison indicates that the device status data received from the mobile device deviates from a trend indicated by the aggregated device status data.

“16. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one memory and program code instructions are further configured to, with the at least one processor, direct the apparatus to: before initiation of the support session, causing generation of a notification at the mobile device, the notification indicating the at least one fault, wherein the at least one fault comprises a predicted future fault determined to affect the mobile device at a future timestamp.”

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

URL and more information on this patent, see: Conrad, Cassandra G. System, method, apparatus, and computer program product for providing mobile device support services. U.S. Patent Number 11601801, filed October 19, 2020, and published online on March 7, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11601801)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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