Patent Issued for Verifying Odometer Mileage Using Captured Images And Optical Character Recognition (OCR) (USPTO 10,534,968)

2020 JAN 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Clauss, Mark E. (Bloomington, IL); Thurber, David W. (Sherman, IL); Riley, Sr., Matthew Eric (Heyworth, IL); Lovings, Richard J. (Bloomington, IL); Balbach, Steven J. (Bloomington, IL); Baker, Nicholas R. (Normal, IL); Wilson, J. Lynn (Normal, IL), filed on April 13, 2016, was published online on January 27, 2020, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 10,534,968 is assigned to State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “In today’s insurance industry, automotive insurance customers may enroll in voluntary vehicle mileage reporting initiatives, which may influence an individual’s driving risk assessment and qualify a policyholder for insurance premium discounts. Currently, vehicle mileage reporting is performed by sending notifications through postal mail requesting a mileage update from the insured, which may require the insured to manually enter the mileage online. Due to these manual and cumbersome methods of updating the vehicle mileage, insurance policy holders often ignore or overlook reporting vehicle mileage to insurance carriers, which may result in policyholders missing opportunities to receive valuable discounts.

“Therefore, it is useful to provide a convenient process to facilitate the reporting of vehicle mileage, but these processes present several challenges.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The present embodiments may relate to capturing an odometer image of one or more vehicles associated with an insurance policy. Each odometer image may be utilized to calculate an odometer mileage, which in turn may be used to update a vehicle mileage associated with the insurer’s policy profile. The image may be captured in response to a notification received via a mobile computing device requesting an update of the odometer mileage, which may be generated by one or more external computing devices. The external computing devices may generate the notification in response to the current date being within a threshold number of days prior to the insurance policy’s expiration date.

“The odometer image may also include status data and/or metadata indicative of the status of the mobile computing device when the image was captured. One or more optical character recognition (OCR) processes may be applied to the captured image, by either the mobile computing device or the external computing device, to calculate various odometer mileages. The odometer mileage may be verified by comparing the calculated odometer mileages from different OCR processes and determining whether the different OCR processes yield the same odometer mileage. The mobile computing device may additionally flag odometer images that are potentially fraudulent and/or that produce different odometer mileage calculations from different OCR processes for manual review.

“In one aspect, a computer-implemented method for verifying an odometer mileage corresponding to a vehicle may be provided. A method may include (1) receiving a notification requesting the odometer mileage when the notification is being generated in response to passage of a threshold date prior to expiration of an insurance policy associated with the vehicle; (2) capturing an image of an odometer corresponding to the vehicle in response to the notification; (3) sending the image of the odometer to an external computing device, whereupon the external computing device (i) performs a first and a second optical character recognition (OCR) process on the image of the odometer to calculate a first and a second odometer mileage, respectively, (ii) determines whether the first and the second odometer mileage match to verify the odometer mileage, and/or (iii) updates a user profile associated with the insurance policy to indicate the odometer mileage; and/or (4) displaying a confirmation that the odometer mileage has been verified when the first and the second odometer mileage match. The method may further include using current odometer mileage, or differences in mileage indicating actual vehicle miles or usage during a given time period to adjust or update auto insurance policies, premiums, and/or discounts. As a result, auto insurance policy risk may be more accurately estimated. The method may include additional, fewer, or alternate actions, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

“In another aspect, a non-transitory, tangible computer-readable medium storing machine readable instructions in a mobile computing device is described that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to: (1) receive a notification requesting the odometer mileage when the notification is being generated in response to passage of a threshold date prior to expiration of an insurance policy associated with the vehicle; (2) capture an image of an odometer corresponding to the vehicle in response to the notification; (3) send the image of the odometer to an external computing device, whereupon the external computing device (i) performs a first and a second optical character recognition (OCR) process on the image of the odometer to calculate a first and a second odometer mileage, respectively, (ii) determines whether the first and the second odometer mileage match to verify the odometer mileage, and/or (iii) updates a user profile associated with the insurance policy to indicate the odometer mileage; and/or (4) display a confirmation that the odometer mileage has been verified when the first and the second odometer mileage match. The non-transitory, tangible computer-readable medium may include additional, fewer, or alternate instructions, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

“In yet another aspect, a mobile computing device is described that includes a communication unit configured to receive a notification requesting a vehicle odometer mileage, the notification being generated in response to passage of a threshold date prior to expiration of an insurance policy associated with a user account profile corresponding to the vehicle. The mobile computing device may also include an image capture unit configured to capture an image of the vehicle odometer in response to the notification. The communication unit may be further configured to send the image of the odometer to an external computing device, whereupon the external computing device (i) performs a first and a second optical character recognition (OCR) process on the image to calculate a first and a second odometer mileage, respectively, (ii) determines whether the first and the second odometer mileage match to verify the vehicle odometer mileage, and/or (iii) updates the user profile associated with the insurance policy associated with the vehicle to indicate the vehicle odometer mileage. Furthermore, the mobile computing device may also include a graphical processing unit (GPU) configured to display a confirmation that (1) the odometer mileage for the corresponding vehicle has been verified when the first and the second odometer mileage match, and/or (2) the insurance policy for the vehicle has been updated (such as an updated premium or discount based odometer mileage and/or actual vehicle mileage or usage). The mobile computing device may include additional, fewer, or alternate components and/or functionality, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

“Advantages will become more apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art from the following description of the preferred aspects which have been shown and described by way of illustration. As will be realized, the present aspects may be capable of other and different aspects, and their details are capable of modification in various respects. Accordingly, the drawings and description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature and not as restrictive.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“What is claimed:

“1. A computer-implemented method for verifying an odometer mileage corresponding to a vehicle, the method comprising: receiving, by one or more processors, a notification requesting the odometer mileage, the notification being generated in response to passage of a threshold date prior to expiration of an insurance policy associated with the vehicle; capturing, by one or more processors, an image of an odometer corresponding to the vehicle in response to the notification; sending, by one or more processors, the image of the odometer to an external computing device, whereupon the external computing device (i) performs a first and a second optical character recognition (OCR) process on the image of the odometer to calculate a first and a second odometer mileage, respectively, (ii) determines whether the first and the second odometer mileage match to verify the odometer mileage, and (iii) updates a user profile associated with the insurance policy to indicate the odometer mileage; and displaying, by one or more processors, a confirmation that the odometer mileage has been verified when the first and the second odometer mileage match.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein the act of performing the first OCR process comprises: performing a matrix matching OCR process.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein the act of performing the second OCR process further comprises: performing a feature extraction or an adaptive recognition OCR process.

“4. The method of claim 1, further comprising: generating, by one or more processors, a failed OCR validation indicator when the first and the second odometer mileage do not match.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein the image of the odometer is captured by the mobile computing device, and further comprising: adding, by one or more processors, metadata to the image of the odometer prior to sending the image of the odometer to the external computing device, and wherein the metadata is indicative of a communication status of the mobile computing device when the image of the odometer was captured.

“6. The method of claim 5, further comprising: generating, by one or more processors, a manual review flag when the metadata indicates that the mobile computing device was not in communication with the vehicle when the image was captured.

“7. The method of claim 1, further comprising: displaying, by one or more processors, a history of odometer mileages calculated from a plurality of images of the odometer over a period of time.

“8. A non-transitory, tangible computer-readable medium storing machine readable instructions in a mobile computing device, that when executed by a processor, cause the processor to: receive a notification requesting a vehicle odometer mileage, the notification being generated in response to passage of a threshold date prior to expiration of an insurance policy associated with a user account profile corresponding to the vehicle; capture an image of the vehicle odometer in response to the notification; send the image of the odometer to an external computing device, whereupon the external computing device (i) performs a first and a second optical character recognition (OCR) process on the image to calculate a first and a second odometer mileage, respectively, (ii) determines whether the first and the second odometer mileage match to verify the vehicle odometer mileage, and (iii) updates the user profile associated with the insurance policy associated with the vehicle to indicate the vehicle odometer mileage; and display a confirmation that the odometer mileage for the corresponding vehicle has been verified when the first and the second odometer mileage match.

“9. The non-transitory, tangible computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the first OCR process includes a matrix matching OCR process.

“10. The non-transitory, tangible computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the second OCR process includes a feature extraction or an adaptive recognition OCR process.

“11. The non-transitory, tangible computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the external computing device, upon determining that the first and the second odometer mileage do not match, generates a failed OCR validation indicator.

“12. The non-transitory, tangible computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the instructions to send the image of the odometer to the external computing device further include instructions, that when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: add metadata to the image of the odometer prior to sending the image of the odometer to the external computing device, and wherein the metadata is indicative of a communication status of the mobile computing device when the image of the odometer was captured.

“13. The non-transitory, tangible computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein the external computing device, upon determining that the mobile computing device was not communicating with the vehicle when the image was captured based upon the metadata, generates a manual review flag.

“14. The non-transitory, tangible computer-readable medium of claim 8, further including instructions, that when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: display a history of odometer mileages calculated from a plurality of images of the odometer over a period of time.

“15. A mobile computing device, comprising: a communication unit configured to receive a notification requesting a vehicle odometer mileage, the notification being generated in response to passage of a threshold date prior to expiration of an insurance policy associated with a user account profile corresponding to the vehicle; an image capture unit configured to capture an image of the vehicle odometer in response to the notification, wherein the communication unit is further configured to send the image of the odometer to an external computing device, whereupon the external computing device (i) performs a first and a second optical character recognition (OCR) process on the image to calculate a first and a second odometer mileage, respectively, (ii) determines whether the first and the second odometer mileage match to verify the vehicle odometer mileage, and (iii) updates the user profile associated with the insurance policy associated with the vehicle to indicate the vehicle odometer mileage; and a graphical processing unit (GPU) configured to display a confirmation that the odometer mileage for the corresponding vehicle has been verified when the first and the second odometer mileage match.

“16. The mobile computing device of claim 15, wherein the external computing device is further configured to perform a matrix matching OCR process as the first OCR process.

“17. The mobile computing device of claim 15, wherein the external computing device is further configured to perform a feature extraction or an adaptive recognition OCR process as the second OCR process.

“18. The mobile computing device of claim 15, wherein the external computing device is further configured to generate a failed OCR validation indicator when the first and the second odometer mileage do not match.

“19. The mobile computing device of claim 15, further comprising: a processor configured to add metadata to the image of the odometer prior to sending the image of the odometer to the external computing device, and wherein the metadata is indicative of a communication status of the mobile computing device when the image of the odometer was captured.

“20. The mobile computing device of claim 19, wherein the external computing device is further configured to generate a manual review flag when the metadata indicates that the mobile computing device was not communicating with the vehicle when the image was captured.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Clauss, Mark E.; Thurber, David W.; Riley, Sr., Matthew Eric; Lovings, Richard J.; Balbach, Steven J.; Baker, Nicholas R.; Wilson, J. Lynn. Verifying Odometer Mileage Using Captured Images And Optical Character Recognition (OCR). U.S. Patent Number 10,534,968, filed April 13, 2016, and published online on January 27, 2020. 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=10,534,968.PN.&OS=PN/10,534,968RS=PN/10,534,968

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