Pre-Grant Publication Number: 20090063201
Collaborate on the process of community review for this application. Posting will not be forwarded to the USPTO.
Flagging a post as an ACTION ITEM signals further research. Flagging SPAM and ABUSE helps to manage discussion.
Placing double brackets around a reference to a claim or prior art will create a hyperlink to the original
ex. [[claim 1]] and [[prior art 2]].
Facilitator's Comment 
Action Item Show without Noise
0 days left
Vehicle Data Recorder and Telematic Device, submitted by Examiner Incognito,
Monitoring System for Determining and Communicating a Cost of Insurance, posted by Susan Murray,
System and Method of Charging for Austomobile Insurance, submitted by Jennifer Brooks.
"CT firm seeks to market safe-driving product"
Hartford Business Journal
May 20, 2009
"The pair also have taken the unusual step of opening up their invention for review to the general patent community of lawyers, technical experts and educators via PeerToPatent.org.
Nowotarski said he is encouraged by feedback from reviewers' posts on the site. "
http://www.hartfordbusiness.com/news8988.html
Examiner Incognito has taken the position that it is not. He asserts that it is self evident that “undue experimentation” would be required.
Jennifer Brooks, a registered patent attorney, has taken the position that it is based on an earlier reference with a similar level of disclosure that just had its claims allowed.
Examiner Incognito: Can you present your 112 first paragraph rejection in more formal terms?
Attorney Brooks: Can you show what an appropriate response to a 112 p1 rejection should look like?
I think your comments would be very helpful to our other reviewers, as well as the examiner who will be looking at this case.
I tyhink it would be unlikely for an Examiner to say that accomplishing NILM in a vehicle is not enabled, especially in view of prior art publications that demonstrate it being accomplished a decade ago like this one:
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1008614
And since the patent I cited shows how to use these typed of information from a GPS system, the question woulld seem to be whether one skilled in the art would have to resort to undue experimentation in order to use the data from the NILM in the vehicle as opposed to the GPS data. I just don't see the enablement issue being the obstacle to patentability, especially when the Examiner has decent art on hand.
Check the annotations, for the PAYD
Welcome, and thank you for your input.
I think you raise some important issues regarding “enablement” and “utility”. For the benefit of our other reviewers, however, could you elaborate what additional evidence is needed in order to effectively reject a claim based on these arguments?
We have quite a high powered group here and an equally high powered group following us on The Actuarial Outpost (http://www.actuarialoutpost.com/actuarial_discussion_forum/showthread.php?t=161480).
If you can be very specific about what evidence is required, they might be able to come up with some very helpful resources.
Do we not need to determine what a person of "ordinary skill" would know before suggesting that the patent application was not enabling? Perhaps someone who could apply NILM to determine how changes in electrical loads can indicate appliance usage might be easily ablle to apply that technology, knowing what he knows, to the Soberteen process?
What seems to be missing so far is a reference that teaches adjusting driving insurance rates according to monitored braking force (deceleration rate). App no. 10/674929 appears to disclose it.
This patent has many good qualities.
• NILM is easy to implement.
• No special set up.
• Incorporates new requirements to identify high risk factors and provides a way of monitoring compliance.
• Prompts parents to become actively involved in their teen driver’s behavior.
• Reduction in insurance premiums.
There remains much room for improvement and further development of the patent.
• Should focus more on risky driving vs. managing illegal behaviors.
• There is no clear explanation on how the insurance companies would implement the patent.
• Record retention policy. These records can be kept and protected by the insurance company for future reference. There is no need to destroy them.
• Monitoring and evaluation of drivers for a specific period of time. This approach monitors the driver only during an initial evaluation period to make the risk assessment and not the actual period of insurance coverage.
• No guarantee the insurance companies will give a discount to people who comply.
• There is no information on whether or not the inventor of the NILM will accept the use of the product and/or under which condition.
• The patent does not provide statistical data of tests done to prove whether or not the patent works.
The patent does make business sense and potentially could be very profitable if executed properly. This invention would be an asset to parents, teens, insurance companies and society as a whole. Monitoring risky driving behaviors and rewarding safe driving only has benefits attached. In addition to the current target consumer, this product has the ability to work for all safe drivers.
Although we feel that this patent makes good business sense, our recommendation is that many of the weaknesses need to be addressed before it could receive a patent. The pros and cons noted throughout the discussion section should seriously be considered. It is critical that all details should be ironed out prior to receiving a patent and approaching insurance companies with the product. It seems as though the thought needs to be solidified further and there are some questions or gray areas of product scope.
(This review was created by Hamidou Dicko, Luke Ellebruch and Kristen Hastings)
We have noted that your review was prompted by an MBA course assingment.
Are you with the kent State group or are you in another MBA program? We are wondering if you can provide any details about the assignment - that is:
1. Is the objective to analyze the market potential for a Soberteen product; and
2. Is an evaluation of the patentability of the of Soberteen invention as described in the patent application also a part of the assignment?
As you may know Peer to Patent is designed to find prior art that might be helpful to the USPTO patent examiner in his/her examination of the application.
Perhaps it might be helpful to your assignment if one of the inventors (Mark Nowotarski) were to dialog with you (via email or otherwise). This might better help you tio understand how Soberteen, for example, might be applied in the market.
A patent application is intended to claim what is new, useful, and not obvious about intellectual property in order to receive a patent. As such it must explain to someone equally skilled in the art of the invention how to make and use the invention. It does not need to explain every detail of a marketing application if those details would be obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the subject matter of the invention.
Please let me know if you would be interested in a dialog opportunity: tbakos@BakosEnterprises.com
I appreciate the offer to have a more in depth dialog regarding the SoberTeen patent, however the course is over. I would be happy to share the completed paper that was submitted to the professor. I will send it to the email address that you provided.
In addition, my post is a synopsis of the 3 key sections that were required by the project. An overview of the patent, review of prior works and a commercialization strategy were also addressed in the full paper.
1) Monitoring a driver for one month of does not assure that the teen is a sober driver. In order to get the discount insurance the teen will most likely drive sober for one month and then drive as he or she pleases for the rest of the year.
2) The fact that the reporting is not shared with the insurer is another shortcoming. While in a perfect world teens and parents would use this information to maintain good driving behavior or correct any risky behavior, it’s more realistic that parents and teens would only view the report to get the discount and rarely give the report findings much thought.
3) It is unclear why the inventor has taken such precautions on the privacy of the driver when insurance companies collect information that is considerably more private than driving patterns and statistics (social security numbers, income, health history, etc.).
4) This product does not encourage safe driving habits for teens any more than the law does or doesn’t. Currently, driving under the influence carries a much steeper penalty under the law than just higher insurance rates and the number of incidents is still very high.
5) There are already similar products on the market that monitor driving patterns.
6) The reviewers feel that the patent does not describe any technological or systematic invention, and that it describes some of the features used or patented by other companies. Furthermore, the patent does not adequately describe how the collected data would be able to differentiate between different drivers driving the monitored car.
In short, the reviewers distinguish that the patent does not make good business sense. Furthermore, the reviewers do not recommend that the Soberteen product be assigned a patent. In addition, the reviewers would like to note that they feel the application lacked professionalism in that the illustrations used were immature and do not appropriately illustrate the patent. Consequently, they do not support what the author is trying to convey.
For example:
1. A one month measuring period was only an alternate suggested in the Specification. Continuous monitoring was also a possiblity. In fact Claim 1 seems to imply continuous monitoring.
2. Not sharing the information (i.e. the detailed information) of the NLIM analysis with the insurance company does not mean that the results identifying the driver as a "safe driver" would not be shared with the insurer.
3. Other information collected by an insurer is considered confidential by the insurer as well. This merely recognizes that point.
4. This invention (assuming continuous monitoring) would find drivers driving in a risky way 100 % of the time not just when they were arrested for it. thereforre, it seems as if it would have a strong preventitive aspect to it. Of course the driver would need to know they were being monitored.
5. Are you aware of any product that monitors driving behaivior to determine impaired driving - rather than just risky driving characteristics?
We would, however, recommend that the proposal be amended slightly to account for some of the shortcomings identified above. Specifically, the one month period is believed to be too short a time period to warrant a significant reduction in premiums or to encourage a pattern of non-drinking behaviour in new drivers. Also, the privacy issues would need to be addressed. Policyholders opting for the SoberTeen™ product should have included in the language of the product that the information captured by the NILM would not be used against them for accidents and/or cancellation of coverage, nor would it be shared with law enforcement agencies. Privacy issues like this will be of paramount importance to iron out.
In order to market the SoberTeen™ Driving Insurance product, it will be necessary to first get an insurance company to agree to offer it as one of its products, of course. Once you have a provider in line, we believe that the endorsements of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD) would go a long way in creating awareness within the schools. It will be necessary to delicately handle the teens’ possible perception that they are being ‘watched’ by the insurance companies and parents. However, if you can demonstrate a realizable monetary savings to them for something they should already be doing, this should appear to be a win-win situation for the customer. A carefully crafted marketing campaign weighing both the parents’ and the teens’ viewpoints will be necessary.
SoberTeen™ Driving Insurance, while not a revolutionary new idea, is patent-worthy, and has the potential to increase the safety of our streets – or at least reduce premiums for already safe drivers.
Wow! Very comprehensive.
Do you have any updated information on TripSense/My Rate that you could post in the prior art section? Even if it doesn't cover all of the ideas in the claims, the patent examiner will still want to look at it.
Also, you make an excellent point about MADD and SADD possibly being interested in this patent application. Do you know anyone there you could invite as a reviewer?
Mark
From the Insurance Provider’s point of view, there are a number of positive aspects to this product. SoberTeen™ Driving Insurance will appeal to many young drivers and their parents, and create additional revenue for the insurance provider. Since adding a teenage driver will typically increase the parent’s insurance premium by 50 to 100%, discounts of 10 to 30% could make a significant impact in their decision making process. Organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD) would potentially give SoberTeen™ Driving Insurance their endorsements, which in turn would provide additional positive exposure for the company/product. The non-intrusive load monitor (NILM) concept will provide the means for monitoring the performance, without needing any additional hardware for the vehicle. Since driver privacy is a priority, the program would monitor the teen driver only during an initial evaluation period in order to make an accurate risk assessment, and then generate a Safe Driver Report. These reports would use self-verifying identification numbers in order to further protect the privacy of the driver.
From an economic perspective, SoberTeen™ Driving Insurance would increase total revenue for the insurance provider, but would also increase overall operation expenses. In order to acquire/maintain the patent rights, an insurance provider would likely need to make a significant investment. As with any new product, there would need to be sufficient advertising (i.e. television, radio, print) to generate exposure and attract new customers to the insurance provider. There would be an initial cost for installation of the algorithm in customer vehicles, whether it is programmed by a certified dealer, or a qualified third party on behalf of the insurance provider. Most likely, this would also require training expenses for any of the parties involved. There would potentially be additional cost(s) for monitoring/evaluating the non-intrusive load monitor data. This could either be performed by employees of the insurance provider, or could be outsourced to a private firm. In addition, further research and development may be required in order to implement and maintain this technology.
In theory, the concept of SoberTeen™ Driving Insurance makes business sense. It will appeal to many parents and teens, and should attract new customers to the insurance provider who offers this option with the promised discounts. However, there are several added business costs involved with implementing and maintaining this system, such as training employees to install and monitor quality, advertising and marketing the concept, etc. Prior to making any recommendations, further analysis (financial, demographic, etc.) would need to be conducted to verify that this would be a successful strategic move for an insurance provider and would successfully grow revenue and market share over the long term.
This patent application is based on the notion that intoxication can be determined from measuring brake force, accelerator use and proximity to nearby cars. The NILM algorithm analyses claims to be able to determine variability in these intoxication factors that cause an increase in automobile accidents and fatalities. Studies have illustrated that increased braking force is associated with driver intoxication and automobile accidents. However, this technology is targeted to deal with young drivers’ who lack experience, which also contributes to their propensity to crash. Since beginning drivers may not be aware of different driving risks, or lack the experience to safely drive in bad weather conditions, the NILM may provide inaccurate feedback by concluding that a driver is intoxicated, when they are truly just very inexperienced. This patent also proposes that the insurance product may be set up so that the policy premium is based on monitoring a young driver during a one month probationary period. With this stipulation in place, this would seemingly only deter a driver from operating a vehicle while intoxicated for the month in which they are being monitored.
There are also some serious concerns regarding the privacy issue. This patent application claims that data will solely be used to determine the insured’s eligibility for a discount and that data will be destroyed once the policy is over and the driver’s eligibility for discount is discontinued. Not only could this privacy policy change at any moment, but there could be demands for that data from third parties. The records could be subpoenaed in a custody battle or by law enforcement, making personal driving data public record very quickly. Also, what if the insurance company found a pattern of increased braking force immediately before an accident? Could they then deny your claim?
The NILM seems to be suitable for determining that a driver is high risk, but based on this patent application, does not provide certainty in establishing that the driver is in fact intoxicated. To maximize the benefit of SoberTeen™ Driving Insurance, additional research should be conducted to optimize the form of feedback given to the teen driver and the reporting format provided to parents. Whereas this projects that a NILM is technically feasible, there remains the need to provide more research and human factors data to support an effective and acceptable design.
This patent application has serious implications for teenage driving safety. According to IIHS, 41,059 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2007, and over one in three of these fatalities were alcohol-related. Furthermore, while drunk driving is the leading cause of traffic fatalities for adults, teenagers who drive under the influence of alcohol are even more problematic. For one, young drivers are less experienced than adult drivers and, while less likely than adults to drive drunk, they are far more likely to have an accident when they do. All fifty states and the District of Columbia have had a legal drinking age of 21 since 1988 and a “zero tolerance” policy since 1995. However, while this may delay teenage drunk driving, it hasn’t eliminated it. This product would give teens a monetary incentive not to drive drunk.
There would certainly be value in using NILM technology to determine when a teen driver is engaging in high risk driving. In fact, there is probably a wider application for monitoring the driving habits of all drivers. However, since driver’s habits vary widely, it’s uncertain if the technology could be perfected to accurately determine the driver’s level of impairment. Also, for the monitoring to actually benefit the insurance company, it would need to be continual beyond the proposed probationary period monitoring. Otherwise, it does not ensure the insurance company that they are agreeing to insure a lower risk driver, as the incentive to drive sober vanishes when the active monitoring period is over. Of course, continual monitoring and reporting has privacy implications.
Also, the idea is not necessarily a new one. Insurance companies are willing to offer numerous discounts to drivers who they believe are lower risk, and drunk driving is a well known leading cause of accidents as evidenced by statistics and research. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) conducted the “100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study” about driver inattention and the increase of crashes as a result. As part of this research, 100 cars were monitored with video and sensor devices for one year. NHTSA discovered that cell phones, fatigue, intoxication, and other similar distractions were the leading causes of these crashes.
Finally, the claims too narrowly define the discount as being in the 10 to 30% range. For example, a 35% discount could be offered without violating the patent, if one were to be granted.
(This review was co-authored by Kira Rogozhina, Whitney Hasman, and Ariel Prater.)
Thank you for your comprehensive commentary.
The “100 Car Naturalistic Driving Study” sounds like a reference that the patent examiner should definitely take a look at. Do you have a copy or a link you could add to the “Prior Art” section? Don’t worry about trying to match it up to all of the claims. If you just associate it to claim 1, then the examiner can do the rest. It would be helpful, however, if you could highlight any portion of the study that is particularly relevant. That will save the examiner a lot of time in reading the whole reference.
Thank you also for your point about not being overly limiting on the range of discounts we claim. Once we get all of the prior art and commentary in, we will probably modify the claims before they go off to the examiner. This will also help make his/her job more efficient.
Mark
The background section says that there are 50,000 U.S. highway fatalities each year. The number varies, but in recent times there have been about 40,000 per year.
I wouldn't limit this application to one where the information is not shared with insurance companies. Insurance companies might be willing to agree to provide larger discounts if the information is shared with them and many customers might accept that tradeoff.
In the third paragraph under “Insurance Product Design,” I take issue with the idea that people are entitled to privacy rights while operating a vehicle on a public roadway in an illegal manner, thus risking harm to others.
Claims:
#1. I would take issue with your having invented something here. Many studies have already looked at the relationship between various observed driving behaviors and crash risks, which is what you appear to be claiming to have invented here.
#2. I suppose it is beneficial to know that a driver is drunk, but if a driver is equally impaired for another reason, the claims’ risk may be such that it is unimportant to the insurance company to know the cause of impairment.
#3. To my knowledge, the NHTSA-supported “100-Car Study” and the follow-up study, did or will, through vehicle monitoring sensors and video, examine the issue of hard braking and risk of crashing into another vehicle.
#4. To my knowledge, the NHTSA-supported “100-Car Study” and the follow-up study, did or will, through vehicle monitoring sensors and video, correlate various driver actions with observed driver conditions (e.g., sleepiness, hostility, etc.).
#5. To my knowledge, Progressive Insurance did this with “Autograph” and may have continued to do this with TripSense and MyRate.
#6. This is the same methodology Progressive Insurance used/is using to calculate TripSense/MyRate discounts.
#7 & 8. DriveCAM is doing both of these now with its American Family partnership.
In addition, a breathalyzer test looks for a condition which is likely to cause impaired driving. The invention monotors directly for actual impaired driving and predicts that the eratic driving behavior observed is a risk factor regardless of the cause.
I appreciate your point. My claim drafting strategies are a somewhat different for Peer to Patent versus the US patent office. These claims are designed for P2P reviewers who may not be all that familiar with typical very precise patent claim language. The language is broader to encourage the submission of prior art that will give the most help to the examiner.
Once the P2P review is concluded, however, I can submit a preliminary amendment and put the claims in the more precise format suitable for examination. I can also take into account any prior art that is submitted and narrow the claims as needed.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. Here are my replies.
“Many studies have already looked at the relationship between various observed driving behaviors and crash risks”
One would think so, but I haven’t been able to find any references. Can you point to one?
“did or will,”
If it is “did”, then the study should be uploaded as prior art. If it is “will”, then they may want to get a license to this patent application.
“To my knowledge, Progressive Insurance did this with “Autograph” and may have continued to do this with TripSense and MyRate.”
Perhaps, but once again, we need an actual reference for this and the other assertions.
I've also sent a note to the VP of operations at DriveCAM to see if they have ever tried it.
I read your patent application, the threads here as well as at linked-in.
A couple of questions trouble me:
1) Why would you word your claims in such a manner. These look pretty perfunctory. And I doubt if the underlying technology to do this would be protected? I am sure with little thought and some technical input, a drastically better set of claims could be constructed (if I am reading this correctly)
2) It is not as much about using "cartoon" in the drawings, as much as, what purpose do these drawings serve? A pictorial description showing a plausible catastrophic repercussion of drunken driving (by a teen) may bring out the need for this invention, but definitely do not bring out the technical advancement of the invention, for which patent ought to be granted.
In any case, is this an effort, to generally save a concept, in as broad a manner as possible?
Thank you for your comments.
I would rather not say what the “purpose” of the patent application is apart from fulfilling the requirements of US patent law.
That being said, however, is there anything about the description of the invention or the scope of the claims that you found confusing?
In terms of clarity and ease of comprehension, how would you compare this application to others posted on Peer to Patent?
Feel free to respond to my gmail address, mark.nowotarski@gmail.com, if you would prefer to continue the conversation in private.
Regards
http://just-n-examiner.livejournal.com/34102.html?thread=1021750#t1021750
Just-N-Examiner is a blog for patent examiners.
http://www.linkedin.com/answers/administration/business-insurance/ADM_BIN/442068-13257335?browseIdx=1&sik=1237656748448&goback=%2Eamq