Patent Issued for System, method, apparatus, and computer program product for providing mobile device support services (USPTO 11683671): Assurant Inc.

2023 JUL 07 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Assurant Inc. (New York, New York, United States) has been issued patent number 11683671, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Hurst, Cameron (Asheville, NC, US), Saunders, Stuart (Lakewood, OH, US).

This patent was filed on January 21, 2021 and was published online on June 20, 2023.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “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.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters 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. At least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing computer program code, the computer program code when executed by one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform operations, the computer program code comprising instructions to: receive device status data from a mobile device; receive a plurality of solution implementation results data associated with a plurality of other devices, the plurality of other devices associated with various device configurations, each solution implementation results data indicates whether a previous solution implementation attempted by at least one other device caused resolution of a previous fault of the at least one other device; identify at least one first device configuration associated with the mobile device; generate aggregated solution implementation results data by at least identifying a subset of the plurality of solution implementation results data corresponding to the at least one first device configuration and aggregating the subset of the plurality of solution implementation results data to generate the aggregated solution implementation results data; determine at least one fault of the mobile device based on the device status data and the aggregated solution implementation results data; determine a first solution having a highest solution success probability for the at least one first device configuration, wherein the highest solution success probability is derived from the aggregated solution implementation results data corresponding to the at least one first device configuration; cause transmission of computer executable instructions to a second device, the computer executable instructions configured to facilitate rendering of a graphical user interface associated with a mobile device support portal on a display associated with the second device, the graphical user interface configured to provide an indication of the at least one fault of the mobile device; and in response to a selection by a user at the second device, cause transmission of second computer executable instructions to the mobile device, the second computer executable instructions configured to facilitate execution of at least the first solution to attempt to resolve the at least one fault of the mobile device.

“2. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the indication of the at least one fault of the mobile device comprises displaying one or more solutions to the at least one fault of the mobile device.

“3. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 2, wherein the indication of the at least one fault of the mobile device comprises a probability of success associated with each of the one or more solutions.

“4. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the computer executable instructions further configured to cause the graphical user interface to provide a plurality of options for resolution of the at least one fault of the mobile device, and wherein the selection comprises a selection of at least one of the plurality of options.

“5. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the second computer executable instructions are configured to cause the mobile device to display support content to the user.

“6. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the second computer executable instructions are configured to cause the mobile device to revert to a last known working condition.

“7. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the second computer executable instructions are configured to cause the mobile device to install, uninstall, and/or block an application.

“8. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the second computer executable instructions are configured to cause the user of the second device to take remote control of the mobile device.

“9. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the second computer executable instructions are configured to cause the mobile device to perform at least one diagnostic.

“10. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the graphical user interface associated with the mobile device support portal is accessible via a web browser or a dedicated application executing on the second device.

“11. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the computer program code further comprises instructions to: identify a fault type associated with the at least one fault of the mobile device based at least in part on a comparison of the device status data with one or more fault profiles based on aggregated device status data from a plurality of other mobile devices.

“12. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the fault type comprises a remotely-repairable fault type or a non-remotely-repairable fault type.

“13. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the one or more fault profiles comprise statistical information related to a probability that a particular device configuration or a particular aspect of a device configuration may give rise to one or more particular faults.

“14. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the computer program code further comprises instructions to: receive a request to access the mobile device support portal from a third device; and cause transmission of computer executable instructions to the third device, the computer executable instructions configured to facilitate rendering of a second graphical user interface associated with the mobile device support portal on a second display associated with the third device, the second graphical user interface configured to provide a second indication of the at least one fault of the mobile device.

“15. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the indication of the at least one fault of the mobile device is configured to persist between sessions of the mobile device support portal until the at least one fault of the mobile device is resolved.

“16. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the device status data comprises one or more of: hardware usage data, device settings information, system log contents, application log contents, a device ID, installed application information, device application data, or device sensor data.

“17. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the at least one first device configuration comprises a device make, a device model, a device operating system type, a device operating system version, or a combination thereof.

“18. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein determining the at least one fault of the mobile device based on the device status data and the aggregated solution implementation results data comprises comparing one or more prior faults associated with the aggregated solution implementation results data to identify the at least one fault of the mobile device as a portion of the one or more faults having a highest probability of occurring based on the at least one first device configuration.

“19. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the second device comprises a terminal configured to access the mobile device support portal via user registration associated with an operator of the mobile device.

“20. A computer implemented method comprising: receiving, by at least one processor, device status data from a mobile device; receiving a plurality solution implementation results data associated with a plurality of other devices, the plurality of other devices associated with various device configurations, each solution implementation results data indicates whether a previous solution implementation attempted by at least one other device caused resolution of a previous fault of the at least one other device; identifying at least one first device configuration associated with the mobile device; generating aggregated solution implementation results data by at least identifying a subset of the plurality of solution implementation results data corresponding to the at least one first device configuration and aggregating the subset of the plurality of solution implementation results data to generate the aggregated solution implementation results data; determining at least one fault of the mobile device based on the device status data and the aggregated solution implementation results data; determining a first solution having a highest solution success probability for the at least one first device configuration, wherein the highest solution success probability is derived from the aggregated solution implementation results data corresponding to the at least one first device configuration; facilitating rendering of a graphical user interface associated with a mobile device support portal on a display associated with a second device, the graphical user interface configured to provide an indication of the at least one fault of the mobile device; and in response to a selection by a user at the second device, facilitating execution of at least the first solution to attempt to resolve the at least one fault of the mobile device.”

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

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Hurst, Cameron. System, method, apparatus, and computer program product for providing mobile device support services. U.S. Patent Number 11683671, filed January 21, 2021, and published online on June 20, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11683671)&db=USPAT&type=ids

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)