Patent Issued for Verified driver system for a motor vehicle (USPTO 11663686): United Services Automobile Association

2023 JUN 15 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Durairaj, Ravi (San Antonio, TX, US), Huggar, Stacy Callaway (San Antonio, TX, US), Lopez, Mark Anthony (Helotes, TX, US), Lyle, Ruthie D. (Durham, NC, US), Meyer, Gregory Brian (San Antonio, TX, US), Mitchem, Sean Carl (San Antonio, TX, US), Post, Nathan Lee (Rockport, TX, US), Serrao, Nolan (Plano, TX, US), Tijerina, Oscar Roberto (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on November 24, 2020, was published online on May 30, 2023.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11663686 is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Drivers of vehicles are required to have a license to operate vehicles and to have insurance to drive the vehicles. A driver may obtain insurance for his or her own vehicle by paying a premium. For payment of another premium, the insurance provider may also offer additional insurance to cover renting or sharing a vehicle by the driver. There are also drivers who do not own a vehicle. The drivers who do not own a vehicle may pay a different premium to cover renting or sharing a vehicle by the driver. Additionally, vehicle sharing service providers and rental vehicle service providers may also offer insurance in exchange for payment of a premium.

“The driving routine of a driver may impact an insurance premium charged by an insurance provider. Based on the routine of the driver, the insurance provider may wish to increase or decrease the insurance premium. However, rental vehicle service providers, vehicle sharing service providers, and insurance providers do not have a way to confirm who is actually in a driver’s seat of a vehicle and driving the vehicle to verify the routine of the driver.

“In addition, drivers are customers of vehicle sharing service providers and rental vehicle service providers. Vehicle sharing service provides and rental vehicle service providers wish to continuously accommodate customers by improving safety, comfort, and convenience. However, each driver has a different driver profile including different driver preferences while driving a vehicle. Rental vehicle service providers and vehicle sharing service providers have many different drivers having different driver profiles seated in a driver’s seat to drive the vehicle. However, the rental vehicle service providers and vehicle sharing service providers are unable to automatically adjust vehicle components for the driver in the driver’s seat for safety, comfort, and convenience of each driver.

“There is a need in the art for a system and method that addresses the shortcomings discussed above.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In one aspect, there is provided a method for verifying a driver seated in a driver’s seat of a vehicle, including scanning a license of the driver seated in the driver’s seat of the vehicle to obtain a driver profile including stored biometric information, wherein the license indicates an individual; detecting biometric information of the driver using one or more sensors in the vehicle; comparing the detected biometric information with the stored biometric information to verify that the driver seated in the vehicle corresponds to the individual indicated in the license using a computer system of the vehicle; and sending a first message to a provider computer system to notify the provider computer system that the driver has been verified when the driver seated in the vehicle corresponds to the individual indicated in the license.

“In another aspect, there is provided a method for verifying a driver seated in a driver’s seat of a vehicle, including scanning a license of the driver seated in the driver’s seat of the vehicle to obtain a driver profile including stored biometric information, wherein the license indicates an individual; detecting biometric information of the driver using one or more sensors in the vehicle; comparing the detected biometric information with the stored biometric information to verify that the driver seated in the vehicle corresponds to the individual indicated in the license using a computer system of the vehicle; and retrieving from a provider computer system one or more driver preferences of the driver and loading the driver preferences of the driver into the computer system of the vehicle when the comparison verifies that the driver seated in the vehicle corresponds to the individual in the license.

“In another aspect, there is provided a method for verifying a driver seated in a driver’s seat of a vehicle, including scanning a license of the driver seated in the driver’s seat of the vehicle to obtain a driver profile including driver preferences and stored biometric information, wherein the license indicates an individual; detecting biometric information of the driver using one or more sensors in the vehicle; comparing the detected biometric information with the stored biometric information to verify that the driver seated in the vehicle corresponds to the individual indicated in the license using a computer system of the vehicle; and adjusting one or more vehicle components to implement driver preferences of the seated driver of the vehicle when the comparison verifies that the driver seated in the vehicle corresponds to the individual indicated in the license.

“Other systems, methods, features, and advantages of the disclosure will be, or will become, apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art upon examination of the following figures and detailed description. It is intended that all such additional systems, methods, features, and advantages be included within this description and this summary, be within the scope of the disclosure, and be protected by the following claims.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method comprising: scanning a driver’s license by a computer system of a vehicle; obtaining, by the computer system of the vehicle, a driver profile including stored biometric information from a provider computer system, wherein the driver profile is associated with information obtained by the scanning of the driver’s license; detecting, by the computer system of the vehicle, biometric information of a person seated in a driver’s seat of the vehicle using one or more sensors in the vehicle; comparing, by the computer system of the vehicle, the detected biometric information with the stored biometric information obtained from the provider computer system; determining, by the computer system of the vehicle, a result of the comparison, the result indicating that the person seated in the driver’s seat of the vehicle corresponds to the driver’s license; sending, by the computer system of the vehicle, a message to the provider computer system notifying the provider computer system of the result; receiving, by the computer system of the vehicle from the provider computer system, a driver preference of the person seated in the driver’s seat of the vehicle; and adjusting, by the computer system of the vehicle, a component of the vehicle to implement the driver preference of the person seated in the driver’s seat of the vehicle.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein adjusting the component of the vehicle comprises adjusting one of a position of the driver’s seat, adjusting a mirror, adjusting a light, and instructing a temperature control system to set a temperature.

“3. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing an insurance policy of the vehicle by the provider computer system, wherein the provider computer system is a computer system of an insurance provider.

“4. The method of claim 3, further comprising: sending, in the message, a vehicle information to the provider computer system; and storing the vehicle information of the vehicle in the provider computer system when the vehicle is not owned by the driver.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein the provider computer system is a computer system of a vehicle sharing service provider.

“6. The method of claim 1, wherein the provider computer system is a computer system of a rental vehicle service provider.

“7. The method of claim 1, further comprising: obtaining current information regarding the component; and communicating an update of the driver preference based on the current information regarding the component.

“8. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more sensors are positioned in the vehicle and include one or more of a camera, a microphone, a fingerprint scanner, a palm scanner, a retinal scanner, an iris scanner, and a weight measuring device, wherein detecting the biometric information of the person seated in the driver’s seat of the vehicle comprises at least one of capturing an image using the camera, capturing a voice using the microphone, capturing a fingerprint using the fingerprint scanner, capturing a scan of a palm using the palm scanner, performing a retinal scan using the retinal scanner, performing an iris scan using the iris scanner, and measuring a weight using the weight measuring device.

“9. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting the biometric information includes capturing one or more of a facial image, a voice, a fingerprint, a palm print, a retinal image, an iris image, and a weight of the person seated in the driver’s seat.

“10. The method of claim 1, wherein scanning the driver’s license includes receiving the driver profile from a digital license application executing on a mobile computing device.

“11. A method comprising: scanning a driver’s license, by a computer system of a vehicle; obtaining, by the computer system of the vehicle, a driver profile including stored biometric information from a provider computer system, wherein the driver profile is associated with information obtained by the scanning of the driver’s license; detecting, by the computer system of the vehicle, biometric information of a person seated in a driver’s seat of the vehicle using one or more sensors in the vehicle; comparing, by the computer system of the vehicle, the detected biometric information with the stored biometric information obtained from the provider computer system; determining, by the computer system of the vehicle, a result of the comparison, the result indicating that the person seated in the driver’s seat of the vehicle corresponds the driver’s license; retrieving, by the computer system of the vehicle, from the provider computer system one or more driver preferences of the person seated in the driver’s seat of the vehicle and loading the one or more driver preferences into the computer system of the vehicle in response to determining the result of the comparison; and adjusting, by the computer system of the vehicle, a component of the vehicle to implement the driver preference of the person seated in the driver’s seat of the vehicle.

“12. The method of claim 11, wherein adjusting the component comprises adjusting, by the computer system of the vehicle, one or more of a position of the driver’s seat, adjusting a mirror, adjusting a light, and instructing a temperature control system to set a temperature.

“13. The method of claim 11, wherein the provider computer system is one of a computer system of an insurance provider, a vehicle sharing service provider, and a rental vehicle service provider.

“14. The method of claim 11, wherein the one or more driver preferences include one or more of seat position, mirror position, infotainment preferences, lighting preferences, and temperature preferences.

“15. The method of claim 11, wherein the one or more sensors are positioned in the vehicle and include one or more of a camera, a microphone, a fingerprint scanner, a palm scanner, a retinal scanner, an iris scanner, and weight measuring device, and wherein detecting the biometric information includes capturing one or more of a facial image, a voice, a fingerprint, a palm print, a retinal image, an iris image, and a weight of the person seated in the driver’s seat.

“16. The method of claim 11, wherein scanning the driver’s license includes receiving the driver profile from a digital driver’s license application executed executing on a mobile computing device.

“17. A method for verifying a driver seated in a driver’s seat of a vehicle, comprising: obtaining, by a computer system of a vehicle, a digital license from a digital license application, wherein the digital license indicates an individual; obtaining, by the computer system of a vehicle, a driver profile including driver preferences and stored biometric information from a provider computer system; detecting biometric information of a driver using one or more sensors in the vehicle; comparing the detected biometric information with the stored biometric information to verify that the driver seated in the vehicle corresponds to the individual in the digital license using a computer system of the vehicle; and adjusting one or more vehicle components to implement the driver preferences when the comparison verifies that the driver seated in the vehicle corresponds to in the digital license.

“18. The method of claim 17, further comprising: retrieving, by the computer system of the vehicle, the driver preferences from the provider computer system upon verifying that the driver seated in the vehicle corresponds to in the digital license; and loading the driver preferences into the computer system of the vehicle, wherein adjusting the vehicle components comprises adjusting one or more of a position of the driver’s seat, adjusting a mirror, adjusting a light, and instructing a temperature control system to set a temperature.

“19. The method of claim 17, wherein the digital license application is executing on a mobile computing device.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Durairaj, Ravi. Verified driver system for a motor vehicle. U.S. Patent Number 11663686, filed November 24, 2020, and published online on May 30, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11663686)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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