Patent Issued for Systems and methods for providing a persistent state (USPTO 11443382): United Services Automobile Association

2022 SEP 30 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Bueche, Jr., Michael Patrick (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on January 9, 2020, was published online on September 13, 2022.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11443382 is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Today, individuals use several different types of devices to communicate including laptop and desktop computing devices, mobile devices (e.g., mobile phones, personal digital assistants, etc.), and landline telephones, among other communication devices. As such, a particular individual may have several different devices available which the individual can use to communicate with a particular person and/or entity (e.g., via various communication channels).

“As an example, an individual may use a particular device to access a particular company’s Internet website. The website may have an electronic document (e.g., an electronic form or application), that the individual desires to, or may be required to, complete.

“The individual may have the option to print the document and complete it. However, the individual often has the option to electronically complete the document via their device (e.g., by completing various electronic fields within the document via their laptop, mobile phone, etc.).

“In various instances, an electronic document can include several different portions to be completed and may require uploading document attachments such as image files, spreadsheets, etc., from the individual’s device. When an individual initiates the process of completing an electronic document via a first particular user device, the individual may not be capable of switching to a different user device prior to completion of the process, without losing information provided via the first user device (e.g., the individual may have to start the completion process over).”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The present disclosure describes systems and methods for providing a persistent state. One or more embodiments include verifying access information provided by a user of a first device in connection with a user initiated transaction session, maintaining a current state of the transaction session in a persistent store, establishing a session key corresponding to the transaction session, providing the session key to the user, and providing the user access to the current state of the transaction session via a second device in response to validation of the session key received from the second device.

“Various embodiments of the present disclosure can create a persistent state in a particular communication channel, which can be instantiated in a subsequent communication channel. As such, embodiments can allow an individual to initiate a process via a first user device, switch to a different user device, and continue the process via the different user device without restarting the particular process.

“In the following detailed description of the present disclosure, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration how one or more embodiments of the disclosure may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those of ordinary skill in the art to practice the embodiments of this disclosure, and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that process, electrical, and/or structural changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.

“The figures herein follow a numbering convention in which the first digit or digits correspond to the drawing figure number and the remaining digits identify an element or component in the drawing. Similar elements or components between different figures may be identified by the use of similar digits. For example, 106 may reference element “06” in FIG. 1, and a similar element may be referenced as 206 in FIG. 2.

“As will be appreciated, elements shown in the various embodiments herein can be added, exchanged, and/or eliminated so as to provide a number of additional embodiments of the present disclosure. In addition, as will be appreciated, the proportion and the relative scale of the elements provided in the figures are intended to illustrate the embodiments of the present invention, and should not be taken in a limiting sense.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system comprising: at least one computer; and a non-transitory computer-readable medium coupled to the at least one computer having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the at least one computer, cause the at least one computer to perform operations for providing a persistent state, the operations comprising: maintaining a current state of a transaction session in a persistent store; providing, over a computer network, to a third party device, a session identifier identifying the transaction session; receiving, from the third party device over the computer network, (i) a third party device identifier associated with the third party device and (ii) the session identifier; determining that the third party device identifier matches one of approved device identifiers stored in an authentication database; and providing, over the computer network, the third party device with subsequent access to the current state of the transaction session via the third party device in response to validation of the session identifier received from the third party device.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the current state of the transaction session is an incomplete state of the electronic document completion process.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the transaction session is initiated by one of a desktop computer, a laptop computer, or a mobile device.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the session identifier is provided to the third party device via a push notification.

“5. A computer-implemented method comprising: maintaining, by a computing system, a current state of a transaction session in a persistent store; providing, by the computing system over a computer network, to a third party device, a session identifier identifying the transaction session; receiving, by the computing system, from the third party device over the computer network, (i) a third party device identifier associated with the third party device and (ii) the session identifier; determining that the third party device identifier matches one of approved device identifiers stored in an authentication database; and providing, by the computing system over the computer network, the third party device with subsequent access to the current state of the transaction session via the third party device in response to validation of the session identifier received from the third party device.

“6. The method of claim 5, wherein the current state of the transaction session is an incomplete state of an electronic document completion process.

“7. The method of claim 5, wherein the transaction session corresponds to completion of an electronic document associated with an insurance transaction.

“8. The method of claim 5, wherein the third party device is a device of a third party medical professional.

“9. The method of claim 5, wherein the transaction session is initiated by a user device of a member of an institution and wherein the transaction session is initiated via an online account the member has with the institution.

“10. The method of claim 5, further comprising: providing, by the computing system over the computer network, the session identifier to a second device; receiving, by the computing system over the computer network, a device identifier associated with the second device and the session identifier; and providing, by the computing system over the computer network, the second device with access to the current state of the transaction session via the second device in response to validation of the device identifier associated with the second device and validation of the session identifier received from the second device.

“11. The method of claim 10, wherein the second device has image capturing capability to capture an image to complete a form associated with the transaction session.

“12. The method of claim 5, wherein the transaction session is initiated by a user device, and wherein the method further comprises: maintaining a subsequent current state of the transaction session in the persistent store; and providing the user device with access to the subsequent current state of the transaction session.

“13. A non-transitory computer-readable medium coupled to at least one computer having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the at least one computer, cause the at least one computer to perform operations for providing a persistent state, the operations comprising: maintaining a current state of a transaction session in a persistent store; providing, over a computer network, to a third party device, a session identifier identifying the transaction session; receiving, from the third party device over the computer network, (i) a third party device identifier associated with the third party device and (ii) the session identifier; determining that the third party device identifier matches one of approved device identifiers stored in an authentication database; and providing, over the computer network, the third party with subsequent access to the current state of the transaction session via the third party device in response to validation of the session identifier received from the third party device.

“14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the current state of the transaction session is an incomplete state of the electronic document completion process.

“15. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the transaction session corresponds to completion of an electronic document associated with an insurance transaction.

“16. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the third party device is a device of a third party medical professional.

“17. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the transaction session is initiated by a user device of a member of an institution and wherein the transaction session is initiated via an online account the member has with the institution.

“18. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the operations further comprise: providing, over the computer network, the session identifier to a second device; receiving, over the computer network, a device identifier associated with the second device and the session identifier; and providing, over the computer network, the second device with access to the current state of the transaction session via the second device in response to validation of the device identifier associated with the second device and validation of the session identifier received from the second device.

“19. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the second device has image capturing capability to capture an image to complete the transaction session.

“20. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the transaction session is initiated by a user device, and wherein the operations further comprise: maintaining a subsequent current state of the transaction session in the persistent store; and providing the user device with access to the subsequent current state of the transaction session.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Bueche, Jr., Michael Patrick. Systems and methods for providing a persistent state. U.S. Patent Number 11443382, filed January 9, 2020, and published online on September 13, 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=11443382.PN.&OS=PN/11443382RS=PN/11443382

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