11 patents

2 at Instacart, for staples and household accounts. 9 for personal finance, from Bank of America research at Carnegie Mellon.

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At Instacart

Granted to Maplebear, Instacart’s parent company, in 2022 and 2023.

  • Patent drawing of a My Staples list: milk, bread, carrots, broccoli, cereal, tomatoes and salmon, each with a quantity and a checkbox

    US 11,282,126Granted 2022

    Learning a shopper’s staples

    Spots the items a customer buys order after order and offers them back as a ready-made My Staples list.

    Granted as “Learning staple goods for a user”

  • Patent drawing of an order screen split into items you previously purchased and items previously purchased for the household

    US 11,783,406Granted 2023

    Ordering for the household

    Gives everyone on a shared account their own profile, and suggests what the rest of the household has bought before.

    Granted as “Method and medium for leveraging information about prior orders from various users associated with an account when receiving an order from a user associated with the account”

Bank of America research at CMU

First filed by our Carnegie Mellon capstone team in October 2016, and granted 2018–2020. Two continue earlier ones, so the nine cover seven inventions.

  • Patent drawing of smart glasses looking at two cars, above a person beside a house and the same person beside an apartment block

    US 10,055,891Granted 2018

    Seeing a purchase’s future

    Augmented and virtual reality that shows what a car or a home in view would look like in your future, given where your finances are heading.

    Granted as “System for prediction of future circumstances and generation of real-time interactive virtual reality user experience”

  • Patent drawing of a phone, servers and an impact-tracking module connected through a network

    US 10,057,145Granted 2018

    Protecting a planned purchase

    Watches for events that could knock a planned purchase off course, then stops them or warns you before they land.

    Granted as “Establishing an operative connection between a computing network and a third-party computing system for transmitting indications of process relationships”

  • Patent drawing of a savings projection chart compared against people similar to you by age, location and salary

    US 10,460,383Granted 2019

    Learning from people like you

    When something out of the ordinary happens to your money, compares it with people in a similar spot to project where you are heading.

    Granted as “System for transmission and use of aggregated metrics indicative of future customer circumstances”

  • Patent drawing of a tablet showing spending by category as a donut chart

    US 10,510,088Granted 2019

    Recommendations from your trends

    An AI engine that reads trends in how you spend and save against similar customers, and recommends what to change.

    Granted as “Leveraging an artificial intelligence engine to generate customer-specific user experiences based on real-time analysis of customer responses to recommendations”

  • Patent drawing of a banking home screen with alerts reading “You may not be saving enough” and “You’re being double charged”

    US 10,726,434Granted 2020

    An interface that adapts to you

    Moves you from the standard interface to one fitted to you, based on how you have responded to its recommendations.

    Continues US 10,510,088. Granted as “Leveraging an artificial intelligence engine to generate customer-specific user experiences based on real-time analysis of customer responses to recommendations”

  • Patent drawing of a master alert list with an icon and colour for each alert condition

    US 10,614,517Granted 2020

    Fewer, sharper alerts

    Tracks which alerts people act on and changes how each one looks, so fewer alerts get more done.

    Granted as “System for generating user experience for improving efficiencies in computing network functionality by specializing and minimizing icon and alert usage”

  • Patent drawing of a Subscription Hub screen listing subscriptions with details and cancel buttons

    US 10,476,974Granted 2019

    One hub for every subscription

    Finds your subscriptions across cards and accounts, and gives you one place to review, renew or cancel them.

    Granted as “System for automatically establishing operative communication channel with third party computing systems for subscription regulation”

  • Patent drawing of a subscriptions screen with a total yearly cost and a warning against one subscription

    US 10,827,015Granted 2020

    Catching unused subscriptions

    Notices the subscriptions you have stopped using and offers to cancel or change them.

    Continues US 10,476,974. Granted as “System for automatically establishing operative communication channel with third party computing systems for subscription regulation”

  • Patent drawing of a banking home screen with an alert reading “You have a duplicate interaction”

    US 10,621,558Granted 2020

    Catching double charges

    Spots when you are paying for the same thing twice and cancels the duplicate, without needing your login for the service.

    Granted as “System for automatically establishing an operative communication channel to transmit instructions for canceling duplicate interactions with third party systems”