Patent Issued for Systems and methods for identifying and transferring digital assets (USPTO 11348170): Allstate Insurance Company

2022 JUN 16 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Liow, Christopher (Northbrook, IL, US), Mitchell, Kevin (Chicago, IL, US), Ramirez, Philip Peter (Arlington Heights, IL, US), Turcza, Daniel (Chicago, IL, US), filed on March 26, 2019, was published online on May 31, 2022.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11348170 is Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Users today can have a large number of online accounts, many of which can have been long forgotten about. The accounts can be active and accessible online. Many accounts have a financial value and/or subscription fees to maintain the account.

“A will is a legal document providing how property is to be distributed on occurrence of a particular condition or event, such as death, or set of conditions or events. The will can identify a set of beneficiaries that receive the property as described in the will. For example, the beneficiary of a piece of personal property is the person who receives the property after the death of the insured.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In light of the foregoing background, the following presents a simplified summary of the present disclosure in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the invention. It is not intended to identify key or critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description provided below.

“Systems and methods in accordance with arrangements described herein can include identifying a variety of accounts associated with a user and determining a set of actions that can be taken with respect to the accounts. For instance, upon death of a user, a predetermined set of actions can be executed to transfer one or more assets as defined in a digital will. In a variety of embodiments, the accounts can be identified by scanning one or more email accounts and/or social media accounts associated with the user. The accounts associated with the user and/or the account actions for the accounts can be automatically maintained over time. On an account transfer event, each of the accounts can be automatically transferred and/or closed in accordance with the determined account actions. In many embodiments, a password manager is maintained to facilitate the review of accounts and the performance of the appropriate actions on the occurrence of a transfer event.

“The arrangements described can also include other additional elements, steps, computer-executable instructions, or computer-readable data structures. In this regard, other embodiments are disclosed and claimed herein as well. The details of these and other embodiments of the present invention are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description, drawings, and claims.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method comprising: obtaining profile data indicating at least one first account associated with a user; scanning, via a computer implemented system, the at least one first account to identify at least one potential second account related to the user, based at least in part on a pattern-recognition algorithm utilizing defined criteria for identification of potential second accounts related to the user based on scan of the first user account and indicating a probabilistic likelihood that the user has the at least one second account, wherein the probabilistic likelihood is derived from scanning a body of an email, as part of scanning the first account, to identify at least one keyword associated with a creation of a second account determined at least in part based on one or more keywords identified in the scanning; identifying an account system indicated in the at least one potential second account, wherein the account system manages the at least one potential second account; determining the at least one potential second account indicates login information for the account system; verifying, based on the login information, the at least one potential second account corresponds to the user; adding, based on the verifying, the at least one potential second account to a set of second accounts related to the user; determining a set of account actions for each second account in the set of second accounts; determining a set of transfer event actions for each second account in the set of second accounts; obtaining transfer data indicating an event has occurred with respect to the user; and when the event indicated in the transfer data corresponds to a transfer event indicated in a transfer event action in the set of transfer event actions, transmitting an indication to the account system to initiate the transfer event action.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the scanning the at least one first account comprises scanning a header of an email to identify a domain name associated with the email.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the probabilistic likelihood is derived from scanning a body of an email, as part of scanning the first account, to identify at least one keyword associated with a creation of a second account determined at least in part based on one or more keywords identified in the scanning.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the determining the set of account actions further comprises: obtaining account agreement data for at least one of the second accounts; and processing the account agreement data to identify the set of account action for the at least one second account.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein processing the account agreement data further comprises generating a set of account action requirements for each account action in the set of account actions for the at least one second account.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the transfer data comprises a death certificate.

“7. A system comprising: a processor, and a memory in communication with the processor, the memory including instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: obtain profile data indicating at least one first account associated with a user; scan the at least one first account to identify at least one potential second account related to the user, based at least in part on a pattern-recognition algorithm utilizing defined criteria for identification of potential second accounts related to the user based on scan of the first user account and indicating a probabilistic likelihood that the user has the at least one second account, wherein the probabilistic likelihood is derived from scanning a body of an email, as part of scanning the first account, to identify at least one keyword associated with a creation of a second account determined at least in part based on one or more keywords identified in the scanning; identify an account system indicated in the at least one potential second account, wherein the account system manages the at least one potential second account; verify, based on the login information, the at least one potential second account corresponds to the user; and add, based on the verifying, the at least one potential second account to a set of second accounts related to the user; determine a set of account actions for each second account in the set of second accounts; determine a set of transfer event actions for each second account in the set of second accounts, wherein a transfer event action indicates a transfer event and is performed by the account system; obtain transfer data indicating an event has occurred with respect to the user; and when the event indicated in the transfer data corresponds to a transfer event indicated in a transfer event action in the set of transfer event actions, transmit an indication to the account system to initiate the transfer event action.

“8. The system of claim 7, wherein the instructions that, when executed by the processor, further cause the system to scan the at least one first account by scanning an email header to identify a domain name associated with the email.

“9. The system of claim 7, wherein the probabilistic likelihood is derived from scanning a body of an email, as part of scanning the first account, to identify at least one keyword associated with a creation of a second account determined at least in part based on one or more keywords identified in the scanning.

“10. The system of claim 7, wherein the instructions that, when executed by the processor, further cause the system to determine the set of account actions for at least one second account in the set of second accounts by: obtaining account agreement data for the second account; and processing the account agreement data to identify the set of account actions for the second account.

“11. The system of claim 10, wherein the instructions that, when executed by the processor, further cause the system to process the account agreement data by generating a set of account action requirements for each account action in the set of account actions for the at least one second account.

“12. The system of claim 7, wherein the transfer data comprises a death certificate.

“13. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions for controlling a processor, the instructions causing the processor to perform steps comprising: obtaining profile data indicating at least one first account associated with a user; scanning, via the processor, the at least one first account to identify at least one potential related account of the user, based at least in part on a pattern-recognition algorithm utilizing defined criteria for identification of potential second accounts related to the user based on scan of the first user account and indicating a probabilistic likelihood that the user has the at least one second account, wherein the probabilistic likelihood is derived from scanning a body of an email, as part of scanning the first account, to identify at least one keyword associated with a creation of a second account determined at least in part based on one or more keywords identified in the scanning; identifying an account system indicated in the at least one potential second account, wherein the account system manages the at least one potential second account; determining the at least one potential second account indicates login information for the account system; verifying based on the login information, the at least one potential second account corresponds to the user; and adding, based on the verifying, the at least one potential second account to a set of second accounts; determining a set of account actions for each second account m the set of second accounts; determining a set of transfer event actions for each second account in the set of second accounts, wherein a transfer event action indicates a transfer and is performed by the account system; obtaining transfer data indicating an event has occurred with respect to the user; and when the event indicated in the transfer data corresponds to a transfer event indicated in a transfer event action in the set of transfer event actions, transmitting an indication to the account system to initiate the transfer event action.

“14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the processor further performs steps comprising scanning an email header of an email in the first account to identify a domain name associated with the email.

“15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the processor further performs steps comprising: obtaining account agreement data for at least one second account in the set of second accounts; and processing the account agreement data to identify the set of account actions for the at least one second account.

“16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the processor further performs steps comprising generating a set of account action requirements for each account action in the set of account actions for the at least one second account.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Liow, Christopher. Systems and methods for identifying and transferring digital assets. U.S. Patent Number 11348170, filed March 26, 2019, and published online on May 31, 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=11348170.PN.&OS=PN/11348170RS=PN/11348170

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