Patent Issued for Systems and methods for using image analysis to automatically determine vehicle information (USPTO 11380083): State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

2022 JUL 22 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, a patent by the inventors Antonetti, Joseph (Champaign, IL, US), Foreman, Gary (Champaign, IL, US), Imran, Abid (Champaign, IL, US), Loew, Justin (Champaign, IL, US), Moon, Calvin (Urbana, IL, US), filed on September 1, 2020, was published online on July 5, 2022.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11380083, is State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Entities who maintain and process accounts for individuals sometimes require accountholders to submit certain information associated with their accounts. For example, insurance companies sometimes require their policyholders to submit odometer readings for vehicles covered by insurance policies, where the insurance companies may use the odometer readings for various insurance processing and for maintaining account information. Generally, the entities must manually review and identify the relevant information and update the accounts to reflect the information.

“However, these submissions and reportings may be inaccurate and/or may include information reported in a fraudulent manner. This results in inaccurate account information which can negatively impact costs for individuals. Additionally, and especially in instances of fraudulently-reported information, increased costs may be passed down to individuals.

“Accordingly, there is an opportunity to analyze individual-submitted information for accuracy, such that respective accounts may be accurately updated.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In an embodiment, a computer-implemented method of analyzing image data associated with a vehicle of an individual is provided. The method may include accessing a digital image depicting an alphanumeric string, generating, by a computer processor, a set of filtered digital images using the digital image, analyzing, by the computer processor, the set of filtered digital images using an optical character recognition (OCR) technique, the analyzing resulting in a set of OCR results respectively associated with the set of filtered digital images, analyzing the set of OCR results to identify a set of common elements representative of the alphanumeric string depicted in the digital image, and determining a machine-encoded alphanumeric string based on the set of common elements.

“In another embodiment, a system for analyzing image data associated with a vehicle of an individual is provided. The system may include a memory storing a set of computer-executable instructions, and a processor interfacing with the memory. The processor may be configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to cause the processor to: access a digital image depicting an alphanumeric string, generate a set of filtered digital images using the digital image, analyze the set of filtered digital images using an optical character recognition (OCR) technique, the analyzing resulting in a set of OCR results respectively associated with the set of filtered digital images, analyze the set of OCR results to identify a set of common elements representative of the alphanumeric string depicted in the digital image, and determine a machine-encoded alphanumeric string based on the set of common elements.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method of analyzing image data, the method comprising: accessing, by a computer processor, (i) a set of optical character recognition (OCR) results generated from a set of filtered digital images associated with a digital image, and (ii) a previously-reported metric associated with an account of an individual; comparing, by the computer processor, the previously-reported metric to an OCR result of the set of OCR results to determine that content of the OCR result is not possible; removing the OCR result; and analyzing, by the computer processor, the set of OCR results with the OCR result removed to identify a machine-encoded alphanumeric string representative of an alphanumeric string depicted in the digital image.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: applying a set of rules to the set of OCR results to remove at least a portion of the set of OCR results.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein applying the set of rules to the set of OCR results comprises: determining, for an additional OCR result of the set of OCR results, that the additional OCR result indicates a string comprising a number of digits that exceeds a threshold number of digits; and removing the additional OCR result.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the previously-reported metric is a previously-reported odometer reading, and wherein the content of the OCR result is an odometer reading.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein comparing the previously-reported metric to the OCR result of the set of OCR results to determine that the content of the OCR result is not possible comprises: determining that the odometer reading is less than the previously-reported odometer reading.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: accessing the digital image depicting an alphanumeric string; and generating the set of filtered digital images using the digital image.

“7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein generating the set of filtered digital images using the digital image comprises: generating a first filtered digital image by applying a first digital filter to the digital image; and generating a second filtered digital image by applying a second digital filter to the digital image.

“8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: analyzing, by the computer processor, the set of filtered digital images using an optical character recognition (OCR) technique, the analyzing resulting in the set of OCR results respectively associated with the set of filtered digital images.

“9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the set of filtered digital images using the optical character recognition (OCR) technique comprises: analyzing the set of filtered digital images using the OCR technique to determine a preliminary machine-encoded alphanumeric string depicted in each of the set of filtered digital images.

“10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, further comprising: calculating a confidence level of each character included in the preliminary machine-encoded alphanumeric string.

“11. A system for analyzing image data, comprising: a memory storing a set of computer-executable instructions; and a processor interfacing with the memory, and configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to cause the processor to: access (i) a set of optical character recognition (OCR) results generated from a set of filtered digital images associated with a digital image, and (ii) a previously-reported metric associated with an account of an individual, compare the previously-reported metric to an OCR result of the set of OCR results to determine that content of the OCR result is not possible, remove the OCR result, and analyze the set of OCR results with the OCR result removed to identify a machine-encoded alphanumeric string representative of an alphanumeric string depicted in the digital image.

“12. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to further cause the processor to: apply a set of rules to the set of OCR results to remove at least a portion of the set of OCR results.

“13. The system of claim 12, wherein to apply the set of rules to the set of OCR results, the processor is configured to: determine, for an additional OCR result of the set of OCR results, that the additional OCR result indicates a string comprising a number of digits that exceeds a threshold number of digits, and remove the additional OCR result.

“14. The system of claim 11, wherein the previously-reported metric is a previously-reported odometer reading, and wherein the content of the OCR result is an odometer reading.

“15. The system of claim 14, wherein to compare the previously-reported metric to the OCR result of the set of OCR results to determine that the content of the OCR result is not possible, the processor is configured to: determine that the odometer reading is less than the previously-reported odometer reading.

“16. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to further cause the processor to: access the digital image depicting an alphanumeric string, and generate the set of filtered digital images using the digital image.

“17. The system of claim 11, wherein to generate the set of filtered digital images using the digital image, the processor is configured to: generate a first filtered digital image by applying a first digital filter to the digital image, and generate a second filtered digital image by applying a second digital filter to the digital image.

“18. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to further cause the processor to: analyze the set of filtered digital images using an optical character recognition (OCR) technique, the analyzing resulting in the set of OCR results respectively associated with the set of filtered digital images.

“19. The system of claim 11, wherein analyzing the set of filtered digital images using the optical character recognition (OCR) technique comprises: analyze the set of filtered digital images using the OCR technique to determine a preliminary machine-encoded alphanumeric string depicted in each of the set of filtered digital images.

“20. The system of claim 19, wherein the processor is configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to further cause the processor to: calculate a confidence level of each character included in the preliminary machine-encoded alphanumeric string.”

For more information, see this patent: Antonetti, Joseph. Systems and methods for using image analysis to automatically determine vehicle information. U.S. Patent Number 11380083, filed September 1, 2020, and published online on July 5, 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=11380083.PN.&OS=PN/11380083RS=PN/11380083

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