Patent Issued for Systems and methods for delivering vehicle-specific educational content for a critical event (USPTO 11763689): Allstate Insurance Company

2023 OCT 06 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Barth, Kim Alan (Northbrook, IL, US), Stroh, Robert (Northbrook, IL, US), filed on December 6, 2021, was published online on September 19, 2023, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11763689 is assigned to Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Vehicle users may often face vehicle breakdowns, vehicle maintenance issues, and other critical events that may need a vehicle repair or roadside assistance. Often, vehicle users are uninformed about vehicle repair, or inexperienced to perform self-diagnosis or treatment of a vehicle during a critical event. Furthermore, roadside assistance may be costly and inefficient, or unavailable in certain locations and times. When there is roadside assistance, a vehicle mechanic or repair personnel may not necessarily understand how to diagnose or repair a specific type of vehicle and may need vehicle-specific information to assist in the vehicle’s recovery.

“There is thus a desire for a system, method, and computer readable medium for delivering educational content that is specific to a vehicle during critical events. Furthermore, there is a need for a system to more precisely match relevant educational content based on input delivered manually or automatically from vehicle systems.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The following presents a simplified summary in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the disclosure. The summary is not an extensive overview of the disclosure. It is neither intended to identify key or critical elements of the disclosure nor to delineate the scope of the disclosure. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the disclosure in a simplified form as a prelude to the description below.

“Aspects of the disclosure relate to methods, computer-readable media, and apparatuses for delivering vehicle-specific educational content for a critical event.

“One method may comprise: receiving, by a first computing device having at least one processor and from a user device of a vehicle user via a wireless data connection, a notification of a critical event for a vehicle of the vehicle user and a vehicle identification of the vehicle; receiving, by the first computing device and from the user device via the first wireless data connection, user input soliciting educational content to remedy the critical event; determining, by the first computing device and based on the received user input, a first set of search parameters, wherein a search parameter alters the selection of educational content by the first computing device; for each of the search parameters in the first set of search parameters, altering a selection of educational content into a first list of educational content from a second list of educational content; and displaying, on the user device by the first computing device, the first list of educational content based on the first set of search parameters.

“The method may further comprise: receiving, by the computing device, vehicle-specific information based on the vehicle identification; determining, by the computing device and based on the received vehicle-specific information, an additional set of search parameters; for each of the search parameters in the first set of search parameters, further altering the selection of educational content into the first list of educational content from the second list of educational content; and displaying, on the user device by the first computing device, the first list of educational content based on the first set and the additional set of search parameters.

“In accordance with other embodiments of the present disclosure, a system comprises: one or more processors; and memory storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to: receive, from a user device of a vehicle user via a wireless data connection, a notification of a critical event for a vehicle of the vehicle user and a vehicle identification of the vehicle; receive, from the user device via the first wireless data connection, user input soliciting educational content associated with the critical event; determine, based on the received user input, a first set of search parameters; for each of the search parameters in the first set of search parameters, select educational content for a first list of educational content from a second list of educational content, wherein the first list of educational content is a subset of the second list of educational content; and display, on the user device, the first list of educational content based on the first set of search parameters.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method comprising: receiving, by a first computing device having at least one processor and from a user device of a vehicle user via a wireless data connection, a notification identifying a vehicle of the vehicle user, a vehicle identification of the vehicle, and a critical event; determining, by the first computing device and based on the received notification, a set of parameters associated with the vehicle user; creating a feature-vector for the vehicle user based on the set of parameters; selecting educational content for the new vehicle user from a list of educational content based on the created feature-vector, wherein the selected educational content is a subset of the list of educational content; and recording the subset of the educational content selected for the vehicle user in a selection repository in memory.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the educational content is based on inputting the created feature-vector into a trained machine learning algorithm.

“3. The method of claim 2, further comprising training the machine learning algorithm to predict educational content based on parameters regarding vehicles and critical events.

“4. The method of claim 3, wherein training the machine learning algorithm is based on one or more feature-vectors associated with one or more other vehicle users and educational content selected by the respective other vehicle user.

“5. The method of claim 4, further comprising storing in memory of the first computing device the one or more feature-vectors associated with the one or more other vehicle users.

“6. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving vehicle information from a telematics system of the vehicle, wherein creating the feature-vector for the vehicle user is further based on the vehicle information received from the telematics system of the vehicle.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the set of parameters includes using the machine learning algorithm to predict the set of parameters.

“8. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a display that includes a link to the educational content selected for the vehicle user.

“9. A system comprising: a communication interface that communicates via a wireless data connection to receive a notification identifying a vehicle of the vehicle user, a vehicle identification of the vehicle, and a critical event; and a processor that executes instructions stored in memory, wherein the processor executes the instructions to: determine, by the first computing device and based on the received notification, a set of parameters associated with the vehicle user; create a feature-vector for the vehicle user based on the set of parameters; select educational content for the new vehicle user from a list of educational content based on the created feature-vector, wherein the selected educational content is a subset of the list of educational content; and recording the subset of the educational content selected for the vehicle user in a selection repository in memory.

“10. The system of claim 9, wherein the processor selects the educational content based on inputting the created feature-vector into a trained machine learning algorithm.

“11. The system of claim 10, wherein the processor executes further instructions to train the machine learning algorithm to predict educational content based on parameters regarding vehicles and critical events.

“12. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor trains the machine learning algorithm based on one or more feature-vectors associated with one or more other vehicle users and educational content selected by the respective other vehicle user.

“13. The system of claim 12, further comprising memory that stores the one or more feature-vectors associated with the one or more other vehicle users.

“14. The system of claim 9, wherein the communication interface further receives vehicle information from a telematics system of the vehicle, wherein the processor creates the feature-vector for the vehicle user further based on the vehicle information received from the telematics system of the vehicle.

“15. The system of claim 9, wherein the processor determines the set of parameters by using the machine learning algorithm to predict the set of parameters.

“16. The system of claim 9, wherein the processor generates a display that includes a link to the educational content selected for the vehicle user.

“17. A non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium, having embodied thereon a program executable by a processor to perform a method comprising: receiving, by a first computing device having at least one processor and from a user device of a vehicle user via a wireless data connection, a notification identifying a vehicle of the vehicle user, a vehicle identification of the vehicle, and a critical event; determining, by the first computing device and based on the received notification, a set of parameters associated with the vehicle user; creating a feature-vector for the vehicle user based on the set of parameters; selecting educational content for the new vehicle user from a list of educational content based on the created feature-vector, wherein the selected educational content is a subset of the list of educational content; and recording the subset of the educational content selected for the vehicle user in a selection repository in memory.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Barth, Kim Alan. Systems and methods for delivering vehicle-specific educational content for a critical event. U.S. Patent Number 11763689, filed December 6, 2021, and published online on September 19, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11763689)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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