Researchers Submit Patent Application, “Evidence Oracles”, for Approval (USPTO 20230260047): Patent Application

2023 SEP 06 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Washington, D.C., NewsRx journalists report that a patent application by the inventors Call, Shawn M. (Bloomington, IL, US); Clayton, Wendy H. (Franklin, TN, US); Flesher, Kim E. (Normal, IL, US); Graff, Douglas A. (Mountain View, MO, US); Leise, William J. (Normal, IL, US); Magerkurth, Melinda Teresa (Utica, IL, US); McCoy, Anthony (Normal, IL, US); McCullough, Stacie A. (Bloomington, IL, US); Runge, Travis Charles (Heyworth, IL, US); Skaggs, Jaime (Chenoa, IL, US), filed on April 25, 2023, was made available online on August 17, 2023.

No assignee for this patent application has been made.

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “The insurance claim process may involve a tremendous number of communications and interactions between parties involved in the process. Potential parties to the claim process may be insurance companies, repair shops, lawyers, arbitrators, government agencies, hospitals, drivers, and collection/collections agency. Sometimes the costs of repairs may be disputed and parties may pursue subrogation for particular charges. As an example, when an insured person suffers a covered loss, an insurer may pay costs to the insured person and pursue subrogation from another party involved in the loss. If an insured vehicle is involved in a collision and suffers a loss, the insurer may compensate the vehicle owner according to an insurance agreement. If, for example, the vehicle owner was not at fault in the collision, the insurer may pursue damages from another party, such as the insurer of the party who was at fault in the collision. An insurance agreement may include an obligation of an insured to assign the insured’s claim against a party at fault to the insurer, who may then collect on the claim on the insured’s behalf.

“Settling a subrogation payment may be a lengthy, complicated process. The various parties (e.g., parties at fault in a vehicle collision, owners of the vehicles, insurers, etc.) may need to exchange information relating to the collision to determine which party was at fault. Sources of information relevant to a fault information and/or subrogation payment may include information regarding parties involved in a loss, forensic data regarding the loss, vehicle data regarding a loss, etc. The various parties may verify and share information from a variety of sources, including information held by parties involved in a loss and their insurers, and information obtained from third parties (e.g., governmental entities, independent contractors, etc.).

“The parties to a subrogation payment (e.g., insurers) may make proposals to one another to settle the subrogation claim. A proposal may include an accounting of damages, such as the costs to a vehicle owner whose vehicle was damaged. If an insured person suffered an injury in a collision, the injured person’s health care costs may be included in the accounting of damages. One or both of the parties to a subrogation claim may rely on independent third parties to assess costs, such as a repair cost estimate by an authorized automotive repair services provider for damage incurred in a collision. To settle the subrogation claim, the parties may indicate acceptance or approval of damages calculations and a payment amount that is agreed between the parties to settle the claim. Parties may rely on a third-party intermediary to handle subrogation negotiations and resolution (e.g., validate information relating to a loss and facilitating communications between the insurers) at added expense.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent application, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “Systems and methods are disclosed for utilizing a distributed ledger, or blockchain, to manage an insurance claim process, in particular, a subrogation claim process. The systems and methods disclose using evidence oracles for inputting information into the blockchain, utilizing machine learning to suggest amounts for the subrogation process, a line item dispute mechanism, and/or creating/managing a distributed ledger in response to a vehicle being in an collision. The methods and systems may make use of secure transactions and smart contracts stored on the blockchain.

“The present embodiments further relate to insurance and handling insurance claims. Sensor, image, or other data may be collected from various sources, such as mobile devices, one or more vehicles (such as smart or autonomous vehicles), smart infrastructure, satellites, drones, and/or smart or interconnected homes. The data collected may be analyzed by artificial intelligence or machine learning algorithms to identify whether a vehicle collision occurred; determine a percentage of fault (for the drivers or autonomous vehicles); determine the veracity of an insurance claim or identify potential fraud or buildup; facilitate subrogation or arbitration processes; determine and assign liability to vehicle manufacturers or drivers; create new blockchains and/or individual blocks for blockchains associated with a particular insurance claim, individual, or vehicle; provide payments or e-payments among parties; and/or facilitate other functionality discussed herein.

“In one aspect, a computer-implemented method for providing data relevant to collision s and subrogation claims by interacting with a distributed ledger maintained by a plurality of participants may be provided. The method may include, via one or more local or remote processors, servers, sensors, and/or associated transceivers: (1) receiving, at one or more processors, recorded data from one or more connected devices at a geographic location; (2) analyzing, at the one or more processors, the recorded data, wherein analyzing the recorded data may include determining that an collision has occurred involving one or more vehicles; (3) generating, at the one or more processors, a transaction including the data indicative of the collision based upon the analysis; and/or (4) transmitting, at the one or more processors, the transaction to at least one other participant in the distributed ledger network. The method may include additional, less, or alternate actions, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

“In another aspect, a computer-implemented method for providing data relevant to collisions and subrogation claims by interacting with a distributed ledger maintained by a plurality of participants may be provided. The method may include, via one or more local or remote processors, servers, sensors, and/or associated transceivers: (1) receiving, at one or more processors, a request for recorded data from at least one other participant in the distributed ledger network; (2) verifying, at the one or more processors, an access level for the at least one other participant; (3) analyzing, at the one or more processors, the request for recorded data, wherein analyzing may include determining data relevant to the request; (4) generating, at the one or more processors, a transaction including the data relevant to the request; and/or (5) transmitting, at the one or more processors, the transaction to the at least one other participant in the distributed ledger network. The method may include additional, less, or alternate actions, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

“In yet another aspect, a computer system configured to handle or process an insurance claim via a shared ledger may be provided. The system may include one or more processors, servers, sensors, and/or associated transceivers configured to: (1) receive recorded data from one or more connected devices at a geographic location; (2) analyze the recorded data, wherein analyzing the recorded data may include determining that an collision has occurred involving one or more vehicles; (3) generate a transaction including the data indicative of the collision based upon the analysis; and/or (4) transmit the transaction to at least one other participant in the distributed ledger network. The system may include additional, less, or alternate components and actions, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

“The methods may be implemented via computer systems, and may include additional, less, or alternate actions or functionality. Systems or computer-readable media storing instructions for implementing all or part of the method described above may also be provided in some aspects. Systems for implementing such methods may include one or more of the following: a special-purpose computing device, a personal electronic device, a mobile device, a wearable device, a processing unit of a vehicle, a remote server, one or more sensors, one or more communication modules configured to communicate wirelessly via radio links, radio frequency links, and/or wireless communication channels, and/or one or more program memories coupled to one or more processors of the personal electronic device, processing unit of the vehicle, or remote server. Such program memories may store instructions to cause the one or more processors to implement part or all of the method described above. Additional or alternative features described herein below may be included in some aspects.

“This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described in the Detailed Descriptions. This summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter.

“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 Figures depict preferred embodiments for purposes of illustration only. One skilled in the art will readily recognize from the following discussion that alternative embodiments of the systems and methods illustrated herein may be employed without departing from the principles of the invention described herein.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method for interacting with a distributed ledger maintained by a plurality of participants, the method comprising: receiving, via one or more processors, sensor data indicative of a vehicle accident; determining, via the one or more processors, that the vehicle accident has occurred based upon the received sensor data; generating, via the one or more processors, a transaction including an identifier for a vehicle involved in the vehicle accident; and transmitting, via the one or more processors, the transaction including the identifier for the vehicle involved in the vehicle accident to at least one other participant via the distributed ledger.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the sensor data is received from the vehicle involved in the vehicle accident.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the sensor data is vehicle data indicative of speed, position, orientation, location, impact, or combinations thereof.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising analyzing a plurality of vehicle components to assess potential damage by: collecting, via the one or more processors, accident data from the plurality of vehicle components.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising analyzing a plurality of vehicle components, by: determining, via the one or more processors, a subrogation claim related to the vehicle accident; generating, via the one or more processors, a smart contract related to the subrogation claim; and deploying, via the one or more processors, the smart contract to the distributed ledger.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising generating a damages dataset based upon an analysis of a plurality of vehicle components, the analysis including: determining, via the one or more processors, a component status for each member of the plurality of vehicle components.

“7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising generating a damages dataset based upon an analysis of a plurality of vehicle components, wherein the damages dataset includes an insurance provider for the vehicle involved in the vehicle accident.

“8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein generating the transaction, further comprises: augmenting, via the one or more processors, the transaction with identity data for the vehicle; generating, via the one or more processors, a cryptographic signature based upon the transaction; and augmenting, via the one or more processors, the transaction with the cryptographic signature.

“9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the transaction to at least one other participant, further comprises: transmitting, via the one or more processors, the transaction to a smart contract stored on the distributed ledger.

“10. A computer system for interacting with a distributed ledger, the system comprising one or more processors configured to: receive sensor data indicative of a vehicle accident; determine that the vehicle accident has occurred based upon the received sensor data; generate a transaction including an identifier for a vehicle involved in the vehicle accident; and transmit the transaction including the identifier for the vehicle involved in the vehicle accident to at least one other participant via the distributed ledger.

“11. The computer system of claim 10, wherein the sensor data is vehicle data indicative of speed, position, orientation, location, impact, or combinations thereof.

“12. The computer system of claim 10, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to analyze a plurality of vehicle components to assess potential damage by: collecting accident data from the plurality of vehicle components.

“13. The computer system of claim 10, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to analyze a plurality of vehicle components by: determining a subrogation claim related to the vehicle accident; generating a smart contract related to the subrogation claim; and deploying the smart contract to the distributed ledger.

“14. The computer system of claim 10, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to generate the transaction, by: augmenting the transaction with identity data for the vehicle; generating a cryptographic signature based upon the transaction; and augmenting the transaction with the cryptographic signature.

“15. A computer system for interacting with a distributed ledger, the system comprising: a network interface configured to interface with one or more processors; a memory configured to store non-transitory computer executable instructions and configured to interface with the one or more processors; and the one or more processors configured to interface with the memory, wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the non-transitory computer executable instructions to cause the one or more processors to: receive sensor data indicative of a vehicle accident; determine that the vehicle accident has occurred based upon the received sensor data; generate a transaction including an identifier for a vehicle involved in the vehicle accident; and transmit the transaction including the identifier for the vehicle involved in the vehicle accident to at least one other participant via the distributed ledger.

“16. The computer system of claim 15, wherein the sensor data is received from the vehicle involved in the vehicle accident.

“17. The computer system of claim 15, wherein the sensor data is vehicle data indicative of speed, position, orientation, location, impact, or combinations thereof.

“18. The computer system of claim 15, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the non-transitory computer executable instructions to cause the one or more processors to analyze a plurality of vehicle components to assess potential damage by: collecting accident data from the plurality of vehicle components.

“19. The computer system of claim 15, wherein to transmit the transaction to at least one other participant, the one or more processors are further configured to execute the non-transitory computer executable instructions to cause the one or more processors to: transmit the transaction to a smart contract stored on the distributed ledger.

“20. The computer system of claim 15, further including: a camera mounted about the vehicle; and a road side camera; and wherein the received sensor data indicative of the vehicle accident includes data from both the camera mounted about the vehicle and the roadside camera.”

For additional information on this patent application, see: Call, Shawn M.; Clayton, Wendy H.; Flesher, Kim E.; Graff, Douglas A.; Leise, William J.; Magerkurth, Melinda Teresa; McCoy, Anthony; McCullough, Stacie A.; Runge, Travis Charles; Skaggs, Jaime. Evidence Oracles. U.S. Patent Application Number 20230260047, filed April 25, 2023 and posted August 17, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(20230260047)&db=US-PGPUB&type=ids

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