Researchers Submit Patent Application, “Systems And Methods For Selective And Real-Time User Interface Display”, for Approval (USPTO 20240103688): Patent Application

2024 APR 15 (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 inventor Olson, Virginia C. (Duluth, MN, US), filed on September 20, 2022, was made available online on March 28, 2024.

No assignee for this patent application has been made.

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Certain industries, such as crop insurance, have traditionally implemented complex software interfaces. For example, insurance-focused software systems were traditionally designed as an underwriting tool for Approved insurance Providers (AIP’s). As such, existing software is still provider-focused and generally includes clumsy and outdated display and functionality.

“Each crop insurance company uses cumbersome drop downs or file tab interfaces such that the user is the one driving what needs to be done. Anyone using such systems needs to be trained and/or refer to a manual to understand where to enter acres, sales renewal, production reports and claims. For example, FIG. 1A illustrates one example of traditional tab-based quoting software that an agent might use. In order to see the quotes for one crop, a user must select the crop to see all the quotes available.

“Similarly, FIG. 1B illustrates another example of tab and drop-down interfaces. An insurance agent user has limited ability to navigate mold, cancels, or transfer policy information. For example, if an agent user makes changes and places it on hold, the system will not prompt the agent user to revisit it, resulting in the agent user thinking the updated coverage is in place when it is not.

“In another example, referring to FIG. 1C, a user selecting coverage is required to click on “endorse policy” before he can make any changes to the policy (coverage change, acreage reporting, production reporting, etc.). If the user is making changes to coverages, he must click on the edit button in order to enter changes for a sales season, then select each crop and select drop downs.

“In another example, complex spreadsheet-type interfaces are provided. Referring to FIG. 1D, when a user is done entering acres or production, he then is required to “commit” the policy which brings him to several screens to finalize the process. Referring to FIG. 1E, an agent user must complete complex spreadsheet-based input form. Referring to FIG. 1F, for production reporting, an agent user is required to use a number of drop-down menus to navigate.

“In another example, referring to FIG. 1G, each insurance company displays quotes differently, and more particularly, the quotes for hail, MPCI, and endorsements are not on one screen a user must navigate to three individual screens.

“As shown by the above examples, very limited software system options exist for the farmer on the insured side. Existing provider-focused software presents an overwhelming number of insurance and crop-related information, very little of which is actually applicable to the particular farmer at a particular time of year. For example, the 2018 Approved Appendix III/M-13 Handbook provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, herein incorporated by reference, details this type of information. Existing systems rely on provider tribal knowledge of applicable menus, data, and selection options. Moreover, the complex displays and selection options presented by the existing provider-focused software are undesirable to insured farmers. An insured user would be required to search through complex menu systems to find the appropriate data. This is burdensome and hinders the user’s ability to operate such systems.

“There presently are no keying options for a farmer user. The only users that can key changes in the AHD programs are insurance agent users. Farmer access is limited to an online farmer portal simply to view their policy-a farmer user can’t make any changes.

“Further, industry software is not intuitive to the user, season, or location; existing industry software presents the same format regardless of whether citrus is insured on the West Coast or tobacco is insured on the East Coast and certainly includes no measure of location or time of year. This challenge is exacerbated as the industry has become Internet-based and distributed.

“Farmers report their acres to two different agencies: the Farm Service Agency (FSA), which is part of the USDA, and the farmer’s crop insurance agency, which is an independent insurance broker. Since there is no electronic platform for the farmer to use, reporting acres to both agencies is a manual, time-intensive process; the farmer manually writes acreage information onto field maps and then must provide hard copies of the field maps to the FSA office and an insurance agent working for the farmer’s insurance agency. Upon receiving the field maps, the FSA office and the insurance agent independently enter the acreage report into their respective software. Eventually the acreage information is synchronized between the FSA and AIP, but the synchronization process takes a minimum of three weeks.

“AIP’s software often has a farmer portal. The farmer portal allows the farmer to view crop insurance information but does not allow the farmer to enter data or electronically upload information which is instead done by the crop insurance agent causing a delay in data synchronization between the farmer, the crop insurance agent, the crop insurance company, and FSA.

“AIPs verify that the acres reported at the FSA are within 3% of the acres that are reported to the crop insurance agent. To accomplish this verification, the AIP submits a records request to the Risk Management Agency (RMA) on each policy. The AIP can only ask for a limited amount of records at one time, and the records request for a single policy can be very large, potentially exceeding 200 records. If the AIP must request more records than the record request limit, the AIP must get back in line behind other AIPs to request more. There are 15 AIPs, which means they are constantly in queue. Because the records take a long time to retrieve, the FSA data is not in real time for the farmer or AIP. Additionally, each crop has an acreage reporting deadline. If the AIP has not pulled the farmer’s data into the AIP’s software by the deadline, the farmer must manually report his acres to the insurance agent. Should this happen, the agent will ask the farmer to submit his FSA papers with the acreage report and will cross check the FSA papers when entering the acreage report. In practice, the farmer must manually report his acres to the insurance agent in most instances due to the delay caused in part by the records request limit and queue. If the FSA data does not match what the farmer wrote on his crop insurance acreage report, the agent contacts the farmer to figure out what numbers are correct. This discrepancy occurs roughly half of the time, and if the data is incorrect at the FSA office, the farmer must return to the FSA to correct the data.

“Another problem of traditional systems is that a farmer cannot work his claim until the insurance company has received the acreage report from the insurance agent and has verified the FSA papers for the claim. Waiting for the FSA data to be synchronized with the AIP’s system delays the claim at least three weeks, as previously mentioned. This delay prevents the farmer from working his claim and can be especially costly if the farmer has a claim in the spring.

“Currently, if a farmer needs to submit a claim, it must be done manually by calling an insurance agent. The insurance agent must then cross check the yields to see if there is a possible claim. If the agent doesn’t review the yields in time, the farmer may have a declined claim as it was submitted too late.

“The RMA has introduced ACRSI (acreage crop reporting streamlining initiative). ACRSI gives the farmer the option to manually report their acres in person to either the FSA or the insurance agent, and then the receiving party of the report will enter the farmer’s acres and electronically submit the data. If the farmer reports to the FSA, then the FSA needs to synchronize the farmer’s acres with the RMA. The RMA then further synchronizes the farmer’s acres with the ALP when the AIP requests the report. If the farmer reports their acres to the insurance agent, the insurance agent enters the acres into the AIP’s software and then the AIP sends the farmer’s acres to the RMA, who then additionally sends the farmer’s acres to the FSA. Even if there was not a delay in retrieving the FSA records, the farmer still needs to sign a crop insurance acreage report which involves mailing or dropping off a hard copy to the insurance agent. This cumbersome process is summarized in FIG. 1H, with the corresponding time requirements illustrated in FIG. 1I.

“Therefore, there is a need for systems and methods that can guide insured users through the complex process of crop insurance in real time over a distributed Internet-based architecture.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent application, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventor’s summary information for this patent application: “Embodiments solve the technological problem of how to meaningfully display large and unique data sets on a user device to geographically and communicatively-distributed users. In particular, systems and methods described herein provide a specific solution to existing technological problems in computers and display technologies. This improvement allows computers, for the first time, to provide rapid access to and process information for which they had not been previously available; specifically, insured user-focused data.

“This technological improvement is necessarily rooted in computer technology in order to overcome a problem specifically arising in the realm of computer networks. Specifically, large sets of geographically-specific and user-specific data across computer networks are displayed and hidden as appropriate. Likewise, end-user functionality is similarly enabled or disabled as appropriate.

“More particularly, embodiments are directed to a particular manner of summarizing and presenting information in electronic devices. As described herein, specific features disclose a specific manner of displaying a limited set of information to the user, rather than using conventional user interface methods to display all provider-accessible data. The disclosed, invention improves the efficiency of using an electronic device by bringing together a limited list of common functions and commonly accessed stored data. Specifically, the majority of farmers insure a limited number of types of crops with a limited number of coverage options, but in order to access such data, traditional systems require an agent with tribal knowledge of the data to navigate large data sets. Embodiments described herein solve that problem.

“In an embodiment, a system for selective and real-time data display comprises a computing platform including computing hardware of at least one processor, a memory operably coupled to the at least one processor, and configured to store instructions invoked by the at least one processor; instructions that, when executed on the computing platform, cause the computing platform to implement: a graphical user interface configured to display, in real-time, data to a user; and a dynamically-guided subsystem including: a task engine configured to manage task data related to the user, the task data comprising a plurality of tasks, a timing engine configured to determine timing data related to each of the plurality of tasks, the timing data being specific to the user, a location engine configured to determine location data related to each task, the location data being specific to the user, a data integration engine configured to integrate selected task data, from at least one database, and based on a set of decision criteria based on at least the timing data and the location data, and a display engine configured to populate the selected task data to the graphical user interface, and receive user-inputted crop data based on the selected task data from the graphical user interface.

“In an embodiment, a method for selective and real-time data display comprises providing a computing platform including computing hardware of at least one processor, a memory operably coupled to the at least one processor, and configured to store instructions invoked by the at least one processor, the computing platform having a graphical user interface configured to display, in real-time, crop data to a user; managing task data related to the user, the task data comprising a plurality of tasks; determining timing data related to each of the plurality of tasks, the timing data being specific to the user; determining location data related to each task, the location data being specific to the user; integrating selected task data, from at least one database, and based on a set of decision criteria based on at least the timing data and the location data; populating the selected task data to the graphical user interface; and receiving user-inputted crop data based on the selected task data from the graphical user interface.

“In an embodiment, a system for selective and real-time data display comprises means for presenting a graphical user interface configured to display, in real-time, crop data to a user; means for managing task data related to the user, the task data comprising a plurality of tasks; means for determining timing data related to each of the plurality of tasks, the timing data being specific to the user; means for determining location data related to each task, the location data, being specific to the user; means for integrating selected task data, from at least one database, and based on a set of decision criteria based on at least the timing data and the location data; means for populating the selected task data to the graphical user interface; and means for receiving user-inputted crop data based on the selected task data from the graphical user interface.

“In a feature and advantage of embodiments, a dynamically-guided presentation subsystem presents data to users in real time. For example, agriculture insurance data can be selectively displayed based on the timing of the season and/or the location of the farmer. Embodiments therefore only include applicable data and/or actions. Icons and the associated computer functionality can be removed from selection. In embodiments, icons are not grayed-out, but removed when an action has been completed. Accordingly, the system eliminates the need for cumbersome tabs and drop-downs.

“In another feature and advantage of embodiments, the system guides an insured user through the process with selectively chosen data. In an embodiment, once an action has been completed related to a particular policy for a season, completed components are flagged or segmented so that they are no longer accessed and a subsequent season’s components are instead operated on, including display and data retrieval. From the user side, for example, if a farmer has renewed his policy and the timing is after the sales closing date, the farmer can still view quotes but only if selected from a higher level access menu at the top of page. In another example, if farmer has reported acres, the system no longer prompts to enter the acres and instead displays total acres insured and liability. If the timing is before the acreage report due date, the farmer can still revise acres by selecting the icon displayed on the screen. To enable this functionality, interfaces, data, and icons can be semaphored, mutexed, or otherwise locked from access based on timing, location, and task data.

“In another feature and advantage of embodiments, a transparency page display generates a sub-display screen into a current display screen instead of loading an entirely new display page. This ensures a consistent, efficient user experience so that the user does not need to leave one screen to get to data on another.

“In another feature and advantage of embodiments, quick entry screens allow for efficient entry of commonly used data. For example, a “quick plant” sub-display allows the option to import planting intentions year-over-year as well as add or revise crop hail on the same display page.

“In another feature and advantage of embodiments, an intuitive sales renewal user interface immediately shows current coverage, updated coverage, and premium costs, as well as multiple options to select in a compact user interface. In contrast, existing displays require multiple pages of printed quotes. Moreover, after sales season, display interfaces automatically and in real-time depict the coverage elected and liability but no longer encourages a user to renew coverages. As a result, the display screens are more intuitive, less busy, as all of the quoting options for the crop no longer need to be displayed. The back-end algorithms disclosed herein allow for this efficient display.

“In another feature and advantage of embodiments, various interfaces allow for acreage reporting. For example, user interfaces allow a farmer user to determine prevent plant, rotate acres functionality, and to report prevent plant and replant claims on the same page.

“In another feature and advantage of embodiments, various interfaces allow for intuitive billing interfaces. For example, once a user has paid a bill, the bill pay feature is no longer displayed. In certain embodiments, billing info and documentation can still be accessed by certain menus. In an embodiment, timing data is used to send SMS text and/or email alerts to the user.

“In another feature and advantage of embodiments, various interfaces allow for efficient and intuitive production reporting. For example, once a user has entered yields, display screens automatically and in real-time no longer offer the option to enter production but will change to display the next year’s coverage options. In an embodiment, the ability to revise yields is available if the user has indicated that crop is stored on the farm and has not been sold. Revise yield interfaces can be available until the production report deadline and then are no longer an option. In embodiments, user interfaces allow for the submission of claims on the same screen as production reporting. Embodiments further allow for unrelated but user-based data to be entered, such as adding or revising hail coverage.

“In another feature and advantage of embodiments, if a user has fields that are certified organic, a quote for all organic crops that are insurable for their county is provided by embodiments. The quote can rank the highest revenue crop down to the lowest. This provides the organic farmer an opportunity to determine which crops would be the most profitable to grow in his area.”

There is additional summary information. Please visit full patent to read further.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system for selective and real-time data display, the system comprising: a computing platform including computing hardware of at least one processor, a memory operably coupled to the at least one processor, and configured to store instructions invoked by the at least one processor; and instructions that, when executed on the computing platform, cause the computing platform to implement: a graphical user interface configured to display, in real-time, data to a user; and a dynamically-guided subsystem including: a task engine configured to manage task data related to the user, the task data comprising a plurality of tasks, wherein the plurality of tasks includes at least one predefined task defined by selectively stripping a data source, a timing engine configured to determine timing data related to each of the plurality of tasks, the timing data being specific to the user, a location engine configured to determine location data related to each task, the location data being specific to the user, a data integration engine configured to integrate selected task data, from at least one database, and based on a set of decision criteria based on at least the timing data and the location data, wherein the selected task data is integrated including for the at least one predefined task, and a display engine configured to populate the selected task data to the graphical user interface, and receive actual user-inputted crop data based on and in response to the selected task data from the graphical user interface.

“2. The system of claim 1, further comprising instructions that, when executed on the computing platform, cause the computing platform to implement: an analysis sub-system including: an input/output engine configured to receive the user-inputted crop data from the display engine, and an analysis engine configured to analyze the user-inputted crop data, wherein the input/output engine is further configured to upload the analyzed user-inputted crop data in real time to a plurality of industry databases.

“3. The system of claim 2, wherein the analysis engine is further configured to forward the user-inputted crop data to the input/output engine such that the user-inputted crop data is not analyzed.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the dynamically-guided subsystem further includes a sensor engine for driving presentation of the task engine.

“5. The system of claim 4, wherein the sensor engine includes one or more sensors configured to measure environmental conditions.

“6. The system of claim 5, wherein the one or more sensors are located at locations specific to the user.

“7. The system of claim 5, wherein the one or more sensors are located within at least one region such that data can be extrapolated for a particular location within the at least one region.

“8. The system of claim 1, wherein the task engine is configured to input agricultural best practice information and output tasks corresponding to the agricultural best practice information.

“9. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of tasks includes a set of icons associated with the task, wherein the display engine is further configured to delete the sets of icons for all completed tasks in the memory.

“10. The system of claim 1, wherein the data integration engine is further configured to make predictive suggestions based on historical data.

“11. The system of claim 1, wherein the data integration engine is further configured to automatically anonymize the selected task data to provide privacy for the user.

“12. A method for selective and real-time data display, the method comprising: providing a computing platform including computing hardware of at least one processor, a memory operably coupled to the at least one processor, and configured to store instructions invoked by the at least one processor, the computing platform having a graphical user interface configured to display, in real-time, crop data to a user; managing task data related to the user, the task data comprising a plurality of tasks, wherein the plurality of tasks includes at least one predefined task defined by selectively stripping a data source; determining timing data related to each of the plurality of tasks, the timing data being specific to the user; determining location data related to each task, the location data being specific to the user; integrating selected task data, from at least one database, and based on a set of decision criteria based on at least the timing data and the location data, wherein the selected task data is integrated including for the at least one predefined task; populating the selected task data to the graphical user interface; and receiving actual user-inputted crop data based on and in response to the selected task data from the graphical user interface.

“13. The method of claim 12, further comprising: analyzing the user-inputted crop data; and uploading the analyzed user-inputted crop data in real time to a plurality of industry databases.

“14. The method of claim 13, further comprising forwarding the user-inputted crop data.

“15. A system for selective and real-time data display, the system comprising: a computing platform including computing hardware of at least one processor, a memory operably coupled to the at least one processor, and configured to store instructions invoked by the at least one processor, the computing platform having a graphical user interface configured to display, in real-time, crop data to a user; means for managing task data related to the user, the task data comprising a plurality of tasks, wherein the plurality of tasks includes at least one predefined task defined by selectively stripping a data source; means for determining timing data related to each of the plurality of tasks, the timing data being specific to the user; means for determining location data related to each task, the location data being specific to the user; means for integrating selected task data, from at least one database, and based on a set of decision criteria based on at least the timing data and the location data, wherein the selected task data is integrated including for the at least one predefined task; means for populating the selected task data to the graphical user interface; and means for receiving actual user-inputted crop data based on and in response to the selected task data from the graphical user interface.

“16. The system of claim 15, further comprising: means for analyzing the user-inputted data; and means for uploading the analyzed user-inputted crop data in real time to a plurality of industry databases.

“17. The system of claim 15, further comprising means for populating the selected task data to the graphical user interface by selectively presenting all products the user has purchased on a single screen.

“18. The system of claim 15, wherein each of the plurality of tasks includes a set of icons associated with the task, the system further comprising means for deleting the set of icons for all completed tasks in the memory.

“19. The system of claim 15, further comprising means for populating a primary screen and a task-based screen, wherein upon log-out and re-log-in, the display engine is further configured to immediately populate the task-based screen.

“20. The system of claim 15, further comprising means for automatically presenting a subsequent task in the plurality of tasks once a previous task in the plurality of tasks is completed.”

For additional information on this patent application, see: Olson, Virginia C. Systems And Methods For Selective And Real-Time User Interface Display. U.S. Patent Application Number 20240103688, filed September 20, 2022 and posted March 28, 2024. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(20240103688)&db=US-PGPUB&type=ids

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