Patent Issued for Systems for generation of liability protection policies (USPTO 11816740): Aon Risk Services Inc. of Maryland

2023 DEC 06 (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 Chmielewski, Nicholas Joseph (Chicago, IL, US), Crouse, Daniel (Seattle, WA, US), Lee, Lewis C. (Seattle, WA, US), Lietz, Derek Charles (Boston, MA, US), filed on November 28, 2022, was published online on November 14, 2023.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11816740, is Aon Risk Services Inc. of Maryland (New York, New York, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Businesses often acquire insurance for a variety of protection purposes, such as claims of personal injury or employment-related issues. One exposure many businesses face is the burdensome costs that may accrue in the defense against, and resolution of, allegations of intellectual property (IP) infringement. However, unlike some other risks and forms of insurance protection, it may be difficult to assess the business’s exposure to IP infringement allegations and/or the policy terms associated with an appropriate IP liability protection policy. Described herein are improvements in technology and solutions to technical problems that can be used to, among other things, formulate the terms and conditions of insurance policies geared towards intellectual property liabilities.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Systems and methods for intellectual property (IP) risk protection are disclosed herein. In particular, the systems and methods described herein provide techniques for determining and/or generating the terms for an IP liability protection policy to compensate the policy owner for costs incurred in the defense and resolution of a claim for IP infringement. For example, a company offering one or more products and/or services may wish to obtain an insurance policy to protect against claims that the products or services infringe the intellectual property rights of some third party or parties. The system allows for user information associated with a user trying to obtain an IP liability policy (e.g., a business associated with the user) to be gathered and analyzed in order to determine various characteristic information. The characteristic information may include such information as a business classification, employee information, revenue information, litigation history, entity status, IP asset information, and the like, for example. This information may be utilized to determine one or more infringement exposure values associated with the user representing an exposure that the user will have a claim for IP infringement asserted against them. In addition, the system may solicit feedback from a potential insurer. The insurer feedback may be utilized to adjust the analysis that has been performed and/or to determine a cost associated with insuring the user. It should be understood that anytime the word “user” is used herein, that term includes individuals and/or entities and/or, in the context of sending information using computing devices, computing devices.

“Unlike conventional protection policies acquired by users, such as policies covering claims related to injuries, employment issues, and the like, it may be difficult to evaluate the potential exposure associated with an IP liability protection policy. As such, conventional policies relating to IP liability often involve a costly and time-consuming evaluation process. In addition, conventional policy terms may not be based on data associated with the user, such as the characteristic data and infringement exposure values utilized by the system herein. As such, the pricing and/or other policy details associated with conventional IP liability policies may be difficult to obtain, poorly reflect the risks of a specific user, and lack stability.

“The techniques for determining IP liability policy terms as described herein, however, help to formulate more accurate and efficient policy terms for providing protection related to IP risks. Additionally, the IP liability policy terms determined and/or generated may expand coverage. For example, terms may include coverage for loss mitigation techniques, such as design-around services aimed at mitigating future losses. Further, the terms may include coverage for contractual indemnities owed under existing contractual obligations (e.g., contractual obligations to existing customers). Still further, as a result of the improved techniques described herein, co-insurance terms may be decreased and the aggregate limit of the IP liability policy may be increased, thus resulting in extended coverage, along with both a lower financial obligation for the user based on a better understanding of potential payouts under the policy.

“In some examples described below, the system may receive a request for insurance policy coverage from a user for claims relating to IP liability. The user may be, or may represent, a business producing one or more goods for sale and/or offering one or more services. In addition, the business may have one or more IP assets, such as patents, trademarks, and the like, for example. The user may wish to obtain a policy providing protection against costs and liability (e.g., financial liability and/or legal liability) resulting from legal claims and, in particular, IP infringement claims. For example, the user may seek a policy that provides reimbursement for defense of an infringement claim brought by a third-party. Defense of the claim may include legal fees, mitigation costs (e.g., design-around costs), settlements and damages, indemnification costs, and the like.

“The user may submit a request, along with preliminary information, to the system that may be used to determine one or more terms of the policy and/or generate policy recommendations. The preliminary information may include information relating to one or more characteristics of the user such as business information, IP asset information, and/or a legal history. Alternatively, or in addition, upon receiving the request from the user, the system may request information from the user. Still further, in response to receiving the request, the system may access one or more local and/or third-party databases having information relating to the user such as characteristics of the user. For instance, the system may determine that the user has not provided certain information relating to the characteristics and may access one or more databases to gather the necessary information regarding the user.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system, comprising: one or more processors; and non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising: receiving a request for an insurance quote to insure a entity against a claim of intellectual property infringement; receiving information indicating a characteristic of the entity, the information including at least one of: business information; intellectual property information; or legal claim information; generating, based at least in part on the information, characteristic data associated with the characteristic of the entity; training a machine learning model configured to determine infringement exposure values associated with entities utilizing a training dataset including historical policy performance metrics such that a trained machine learning model is generated to weight characteristics of the entities; determining, based at least in part on the characteristic data and utilizing the trained machine learning model, an infringement exposure value associated with the entity; receiving feedback data associated with the infringement exposure value; determining, based at least in part on the infringement exposure value and the feedback data, a cost for insuring the entity against the claim of intellectual property infringement; determining at least one term of an insurance policy associated with the entity, the insurance policy including at least the cost; automatically generating policy data representing the insurance policy including the at least one term, the automatic generation of the policy data based at least in part on the characteristic data, the infringement exposure value, and the feedback data, and the automatic generation of the policy data performed absent user input and utilizing prior policy data generated in association with a prior insurance policy; and sending the policy data to a device, the policy data causing the device to display the insurance policy along with functionality for accepting the insurance policy.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein determining the infringement exposure value comprises determining the infringement exposure value based at least in part on a revenue source associated with the entity.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein: the business information includes at least an industry classification, a number of employees, or a revenue value; the intellectual property information includes at least one of: a number of intellectual property assets associated with the entity; a type of intellectual property of individual ones of the intellectual property assets; a licensing agreement associated with at least one of the intellectual property assets; or a second insurance policy associated with the at least one of the intellectual property assets; and the legal claim information includes at least one of: a litigation history associated with the entity; information associated with infringement allegations asserted against the entity; or resolution information including at least one of settlement terms, damages, or information indicating whether the entity prevailed.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one term of the insurance policy includes at least one of: a reimbursement provision covering a cost associated with defending against the claim of intellectual property infringement; a settlement cost; a damages cost; legal costs; or an indemnity cost.

“5. The system of claim 1, the operations further comprising: determining a first liability cost associated with the entity, wherein the first liability cost represents a first cost which the entity is responsible for in defense of an infringement allegation; determining a second liability cost associated with an insurer, wherein the second liability cost represents a second cost which the insured is responsible for in the defense of the infringement allegation; and wherein the at least one term includes the first liability cost and the second liability cost.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein receiving the information indicating the characteristic of the entity comprises: causing display of a graphical entity interface to the entity, the graphical entity interface including an element configured to receive input data associated with the information; and receiving the input data, the input data including at least the information.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein: receiving the information indicating the characteristic of the entity comprises: accessing one or more databases having first data associated with the entity; identifying a given characteristic for which second data is unavailable in the one or more databases; sending, based at least in part on identifying the given characteristic, an intake document including an element requesting the second data; and receiving the second data; and determining the characteristic data comprises determining the characteristic data based at least in part on the second data.

“8. A method comprising: receiving a request for an insurance quote to insure a entity against a claim of intellectual property infringement; receiving information indicating a characteristic of the entity, the information including at least one of: business information; intellectual property information; or legal claim information; generating, based at least in part on the information, characteristic data associated with the characteristic of the entity; training a machine learning model configured to determine infringement exposure values associated with entities utilizing a training dataset including historical policy performance metrics such that a trained machine learning model is generated to weight characteristics of the entities; determining, based at least in part on the characteristic data and utilizing the trained machine learning model, an infringement exposure value associated with the entity receiving feedback data associated with the infringement exposure value; determining, based at least in part on the infringement exposure value and the feedback data, a cost for insuring the entity against the claim of intellectual property infringement; determining at least one term of an insurance policy associated with the entity, the insurance policy including at least the cost; automatically generating policy data representing the insurance policy including the at least one term, the automatic generation of the policy data based at least in part on the characteristic data, the infringement exposure value, and the feedback data, and the automatic generation of the policy data performed absent user input and utilizing prior policy data generated in association with a prior insurance policy; and sending the policy data to a device, the policy data causing the device to display the insurance policy along with functionality for accepting the insurance policy.

“9. The method of claim 8, wherein determining the infringement exposure value comprises: causing display of a graphical entity interface to the entity, the graphical entity interface including an element configured to receive input data associated with at least one of the business information, the intellectual property information, or the legal claim information; and receiving the input data.

“10. The method of claim 9, wherein: the business information includes at least an industry classification, a number of employees, or a revenue value; the intellectual property information includes at least one of: a number of intellectual property assets associated with the entity; a type of intellectual property of individual ones of the intellectual property assets; a licensing agreement associated with at least one of the intellectual property assets; or a second insurance policy associated with the at least one of the intellectual property assets; and the legal claim information includes at least one of: a litigation history associated with the entity; information associated with infringement allegations asserted against the entity; or resolution information, the resolution information including at least one of settlement terms, damages, or whether the entity prevailed.

“11. The method of claim 8, further comprising: receiving, from at least one of a device associated with an insurer or at least one insurer, the feedback data associated with the infringement exposure value.

“12. The method of claim 11, further comprising: receiving a first indication of acceptance of the insurance policy by the entity; receiving a second indication of acceptance of the insurance policy by the insurer; and in response to receiving the first indication and the second indication, issuing the insurance policy.

“13. The method of claim 11, further comprising: determining a first liability cost associated with the entity, wherein the first liability cost represents a first cost which the entity is responsible for in defense of an infringement allegation; determining a second liability cost associated with the insurer, wherein the second liability cost represents a second cost which the insurer is responsible for in the defense of the infringement allegation; and wherein the insurance policy further includes the first liability cost and the second liability cost.

“14. The method of claim 8, wherein the at least one term of the insurance policy includes at least one of: a reimbursement provision covering a cost associated with defending against the claim of intellectual property infringement; a settlement cost; a damages cost; legal cost; or an indemnity cost.”

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

For more information, see this patent: Chmielewski, Nicholas Joseph. Systems for generation of liability protection policies. U.S. Patent Number 11816740, filed November 28, 2022, and published online on November 14, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11816740)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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