Patent ID: 11972359
Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 7:
8. A server device comprising control circuitry and a storage device, the control circuitry operative to:
store, in the storage device, appliance use information including an operating state of each of two or more appliances when each of the two or more appliances were used;
analyze the appliance use information stored in the storage device to
(i) determine, for each of all of the functions of the two or more appliances, a use frequency indicating a number of times or a length of a period the function was used in a predetermined period,
(ii) identify, from among all of the functions of the two or more appliances, one or more first functions having the use frequency less than or equal to a threshold value, and
(iii) for each of the two or more appliances, calculate, as a level of full use of the appliance, a value of a proportion obtained by dividing (a) a number obtained by subtracting a total number of the identified one or more first functions of the appliance having the use frequency less than or equal to the threshold value from the total number of all of the functions of the appliance by (b) the total number of all of the functions of the appliance;

provide a notice for prompting to use the identified one or more first functions if one of the identified first functions identified using the appliance use information stored in the storage device concerns performing maintenance of each of the two or more appliances, the maintenance including cleaning of the one or more appliances; and
add one or more points to user information based on the calculated level of full use of the appliance, the one or more points added to the user information being an incentive promoting the user to use the one or more first functions.