Accessibility insurance coverage management

• US 7,480,622 B2
• Filed: 12/12/2002
• Issued: 01/20/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/12/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Dutta, Rabindranath, Hartley, John C., Schwerdtfeger, Richard Scott
• Primary Examiner(s): Gilligan; C Luke
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, TRAN N
• Application Number:
  US10/318,522
• Publication Number:
  US 20040117216A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,231 Days
• Field of Search: 705/4
• US Class Current: 705/4
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance

Abstract

Accessibility insurance coverage management is provided. An insurance server receives a coverage request from a requestor that includes a user identifier corresponding to a user (i.e. policyholder). The insurance server matches the user identifier with a stored policyholder identifier and retrieves accessibility data corresponding to the matched policyholder identifier. If required, the insurance server updates the policyholder'"'"'s accessibility data by receiving accessibility data from an accessibility database server. The insurance server identifies the policyholder'"'"'s coverage using the user'"'"'s accessibility data along with the user'"'"'s policy information. The insurance server sends a message to the requestor which indicates an amount of the particular item corresponding to the coverage request the insurance server covers. The insurance server receives accessibility service bills on a frequent basis, such as monthly. The insurance server verifies the billing information, pays the bill, and updates policyholder claims paid to date information.

Claims

1. A method of processing accessibility insurance coverage requests, said method comprising:

receiving a web page request over a computer network from a user, the web page request corresponding to a web page, the web page including visual data;

in response to receiving the web page request, transcoding the visual data from a visual presentation form to an audible presentation form, wherein the transcoding further comprises;

determining that the visual data is copyright protected;

in response to determining that the visual data is copyright protected, sending a permission request to a copyright server;

in response to sending the permission request to the copyright server, receiving a response from the copyright server indicating that it is permissible to transcode the visual data;

in response to the transcoding, storing transcoding fee data in a transcode billing store, the transcoding fee data including a content identifier corresponding to the web page and a user identifier corresponding to the user;

receiving a coverage request over the computer network from a requestor, wherein the coverage request includes the user identifier, an insurance identifier, and the content identifier;

identifying insurance coverage data corresponding to the user, the identifying based upon the user identifier, the insurance identifier, and the content identifier;

transmitting the insurance coverage data to the requestor over the computer network in response to the coverage request;

determining an insurance payment amount, wherein the insurance payment amount is a first portion of the transcoding fee data; and

determining a user payment amount, wherein the user payment amount is a second portion of the transcoding fee data.

2. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the requestor is selected from the group consisting of a portal server, a service provider, a client, an accounting server, a transcoding proxy server, and a web server.

3. The method as described in claim 1 further comprising:

sending an accessibility record request to an accessibility database server, wherein the accessibility record request includes the user identifier;

receiving accessibility data in response to the accessibility record request, wherein the accessibility data is used in the identifying.

4. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the requestor is a service provider server, and wherein the service provider server is selected from the group consisting of a parking garage server, a parking meter server, a public transportation server, and an airport special assistance server.

5. The method as described in claim 1 further comprising:

receiving an insurance bill from a payment collection server over a computer network, wherein the insurance bill includes a coverage amount, the coverage amount corresponding to the insurance coverage data; and

sending an electronic payment to the payment collection server.

6. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the requestor is a service provider, wherein the access request identifier corresponds to accessibility privileges for a user, and wherein the user corresponds to the user identifier.

7. The method as described in claim 1 further comprising:

identifying, at the requestor, an insurance server corresponding to the user identifier; and

sending, at the requestor, the coverage request to the insurance server.