Abstract:
A system and methodology for providing timely information regarding an automobile or other vehicle from one or more sources linked by a global computer network such as the Internet to a device such as a hand-held portable wireless device (cellular or LAN), whereby the vehicle information may be displayed to a user and utilized by the user for making a purchase decision regarding that automobile or class of automobiles in a real time fashion.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION  
       [0001]     This application is based on and claims priority from co-pending U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/511,632, which was filed on Oct. 15, 2003, which is incorporated by reference herein. 
     
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0002]     The present invention relates to a method and system that provides information regarding a specific automobile (or class of automobiles) or other vehicle to a user device such as a handheld wireless device in order to aid a potential buyer in making a purchase decision.  
         [0003]     The car sales industry has spawned a large amount of Internet development from point of sale tools to online auctions. Long time dealer services and resources are now provided electronically as well as through traditional methods. The focus of this opportunity is the services that are currently used and subscribed to by dealers as well as available resources that are as yet not utilized for the function of buying cars.  
         [0004]     An automobile dealer must have the skills, knowledge and tools to buy a car at the appropriate price. In today&#39;s market there are a number of services that provide information and tools to help buyers purchase cars for resale more optimally. These services provide regionalized historical and calculated value information to aid a buyer in properly valuing a vehicle. These resources are rarely available to the buyer at the location or time of purchase by any means other than wholesale Black Book or NADA information in the form of a small printed publication or a download to a PDA.  
         [0005]     At a base level the buying process can be described as follows. A buyer buys cars for resale at auction or from a potential customer with a trade-in or through a number of other resources. The buyer will examine the vehicle, look up it&#39;s relative wholesale values in a book or PDA he has on his person, draw on his own knowledge of the retail market value for that particular year, make and model, and make an assessment. About 5% of cars purchased are done so at unduly large prices, causing large dealerships tens of thousands of unit losses per month.  
         [0006]     There are currently a number of online companies such as Trader Online (Auto Trader), Ebay and Carfax that represent a potential source of valuable information for dealerships when buying cars. These resources are currently used for evaluation or as sales tools only after the purchase has been made.  
         [0007]     Improperly valued purchases can result in a loss of $1,000 to $3,000 per vehicle. It is estimated that an experienced dealer will realize this kind of loss on at least 5% of purchased vehicles every month. This can result in over $10,000 in losses for every 100 used cars purchased for resale.  
         [0008]     Because of the fast pace of the business and the difficulty in retrieving evaluation information from existing common resources, dealers have relied on volume to discount individual losses. In addition, there are resources of information through online companies that have not yet been fully realized as a common tool for evaluation primarily due to the lack of availability of that information when it could be most effective.  
         [0009]     Large dealers typically purchase 30-60 Carfax reports each month and subscribe to 20 or more copies of the Black Book wholesale information or similar publications like NADA as well as purchasing a few user licenses for the online service.  
         [0010]     It is the intent of this invention to vastly increase the amount and type of information available to buyers and put it in the palm of their hand while inspecting the vehicle. In addition, we will allow the buyer to do this with little more than a single scan of the bar-coded VIN.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0011]     The present invention is a system and methodology for providing timely information regarding an automobile or other vehicle from one or more sources linked by a global computer network such as the Internet to a device such as a hand-held portable wireless device, whereby the vehicle information may be displayed to a user and utilized by the user for making a purchase decision regarding that automobile or class of automobiles in a real time fashion.  
         [0012]     A user of the present invention is provided with a portable device (or necessary software for a compatible device the user may own) such as a handheld computing device with wireless Internet capabilities and, optionally, automatic data input capabilities such as a bar code scanner. The user enters or scans the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) of a vehicle under investigation, either by scanning a bar code located on the vehicle that is encoded with the VIN, or by manually entering the VIN on a touchscreen, keyboard or other data entry device on the handheld device. The VIN is processed and transmitted wirelessly, over an Internet or local area network connection, to a communications manager in a vehicular information system, which in turn passes the VIN to an information manager. The information manager checks an internal WAVIS (Wireless Automobile Valuation Information Service) database for internally stored information regarding the make, model and year of the vehicle (as determined by the VIN). The WAVIS system also communicates directly with one or more externally located information servers over the Internet. Information regarding the vehicle is collected by the WAVIS server and processed for downloading back to the handheld device. The user can then review the information provided, in real time, regarding the vehicle and then make an informed purchase decision on the vehicle.  
         [0013]     In particular, the present invention is a method of and system for providing information regarding a motor vehicle in which vehicle index data (i.e. the VIN) is input into a device and then translated to a request for vehicular information. The request is transmitted to a remotely located vehicular information system, where information is retrieved that is relevant to the motor vehicle as a function of the request. The vehicular information system transmits the information relevant to the motor vehicle to the device, where it is displayed.  
         [0014]     The device, which may be a portable, hand-held device, may have one or more of various input technologies for providing the vehicle index data, including but not limited to a bar code scanner, a radio frequency identification tag reader, a microwave tag reader, an optical reader, and/or manual input means such as a touchscreen.  
         [0015]     Once the vehicle index data is input, information may be retrieved from a local repository of data (such as an on-board memory or cache) or it may be retrieved from a remote repository of data by either a selectively connected interface or a continuously connected interface.  
         [0016]     The retrieved information relevant to the motor vehicle may be processed prior to transmitting the information to the device, and/or it may be processed after it is received from the vehicular information system. For example, a valuation process may be executed for the motor vehicle by utilizing the information obtained relevant to the motor vehicle, determining a range of value for said motor vehicle based on said valuation process, and then displaying said range of value on the device. Also, user parameter data may be entered via a user interface on the device; after which time the retrieved information may be processed in conjunction with the entered user parameter data. Further, the information relevant to the motor vehicle displayed on the device may be a function of the processed retrieved information in conjunction with the entered user parameter data. The user may be prompted by the device to enter the user parameter data during processing of the retrieved information relevant to the motor vehicle.  
         [0017]     The scanned VIN may be used to obtain information regarding registration information, title information, inspection information, prior sales information, police information, insurance information, repair information, and/or recall information. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING  
       [0018]      FIG. 1A  is a bock diagram of the system of the present invention.  
         [0019]      FIG. 1B  is a detailed block diagram of the vehicular information system of the present invention.  
         [0020]      FIG. 1C  is a detailed block diagram of the user device of the present invention.  
         [0021]      FIGS. 2A and 2B  are a flowchart of the procedure of the present invention.  
         [0022]      FIG. 3  is an example of a PDA with a display screen in accordance with the present invention. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT  
       [0023]     The present invention provides the following beneficial features. While inspecting the vehicle at auction or on the sales lot or literally anywhere, the buyer can scan the bar-coded VIN number of a vehicle and retrieve the following real-time information within seconds: 
        Year, Make, Model, Engine Size, Drive Line     Standard Features     Optional Features and their relative added value     Calculated wholesale values for the region     Recent wholesale historical data for that year-make-model vehicle     Retail, Private Party and Trade-In value of the vehicle     Vehicle history, title check, ownership records     The competition: The quantity and prices or price range of similar cars currently advertised in the dealerships area        
 
         [0032]     For the Dealerships the system will: 
        Save dealers from monthly losses     Consolidate existing subscription information for the dealer     Increase the quantity, quality, usability and overall value of the information provided     Provide incomparable access to the information     Allow more staff to perform the duty of valuing vehicles by dramatically reducing the need for lengthy experience     Consolidate billing for existing subscriptions.        
 
         [0039]     For Information Vendors the system will: 
        Generate new customers with higher usage rates     Provide cross over subscriptions between vendors     Increase usage from existing subscribers     Offer consolidated billing of thousands of accounts     Offer new channels of distribution for vendors whose information is not commonly used for this application.        
 
         [0045]     The system contains checks and switches modifiable by the subscriber to tailor the evaluation criteria to their own specifications. For example, no longer would a user only rely on the buyers with vast experience to safely evaluate a vehicle (even they make a certain percentage of imprudent purchases each month). Parameters could be set to automatically set a price target for a car based on the information that would be provided by the service of this invention. The only evaluation would be a visual/hands on inspection of the vehicle. The market analysis would be set and a target buy price provided based on an expected margin. Alternately, a car could be rejected immediately or devalued based on a derogatory item from Carfax or saturation of the local market for that particular model.  
         [0046]     The present invention will now be described with reference to the attached Figures.  FIG. 1A  illustrates a system block diagram of the present invention  2 . The flow of operations is set forth in the flowcharts of  FIGS. 2A and 2B . A user of the system, who will typically be a person seeking to purchase a used automobile or other type of vehicle, will be provided with a WAVIS user device  4 , which in the preferred embodiment is a portable handheld device such as a Portable Digital Assistant (PDA) by PALM, HANDSPRING, etc. The portable device  4  will be adapted for wireless communications with the Internet (or a Wi-Fi LAN) via a wireless network  31  and global network (Internet)  30  so that it can provide the vehicle&#39;s VIN to the remotely located vehicular information system  14  (also referred to as a WAVIS server) and receive information regarding the vehicle, all in real time without having to connect the device  4  to a desktop computer or the like. As such, a user in the field may implement the present invention as described herein.  
         [0047]     The handheld device  4  is also adapted to scan bar codes or other types of machine-readable indicia. Since for most automobiles a vehicle&#39;s VIN  14  is encoded into a bar code symbol that is prominently displayed on the vehicle, the user can easily scan the VIN as a data input to the handheld device  4  at step A (the user may also input a core set of data as described below). The bar code symbol scanned by the user is decoded by a software program executing on the handheld device so as to provide the VIN, typically in ASCII format. The decoded VIN is then transmitted by the wireless network  31  and Internet connection  30  to the vehicular information system (the WAVIS server)  14  as well known in the art. In particular, the handheld device  4  is connected at step B to a communications manager application adapted to communicate with the handheld device.  
         [0048]     The handheld user device  4  is shown in detail in  FIG. 1C . The user device  4  includes automatic data input functionality which may be a bar code scanner  6 , an RFID (radio frequency identification tag) reader  22 , a microwave reader  24 , and/or an optical reader  26 , all of which are well known in the art of automatic data input. In addition, the device  4  will have manual user data input functionality such as a touchcreen display  8  and/or keys  28 , for manually entering information and controlling operation of the device  4 . The device  4  will also have a processor  12 , memory  13 , and a communications port  10  (which may be wired or wireless) as well known in the art. For example, the device  4  may be a PDA modified to operate in accordance with this invention, such as by the addition of a wireless modem and a bar code scanner.  FIG. 3  illustrates a PALM PILOT PDA device adapted in accordance with this invention.  
         [0049]     The vehicular information system (WAVIS server)  14  is shown in detail in  FIG. 1B . The WAVIS server  14  includes several main components, which are the communications manager  16 , the WAVIS database  50 , and the information manager  18 . The WAVIS database stores various types of information, including retrieved information  42  (information retrieved from external information servers  40 ), calculated information  44 , user information  46 , and system usage and account information  48 . The operation of the WAVIS server in conjunction with the entire system will be explained herein.  
         [0050]     As previously mentioned, in addition (or in the alternative) to entering a VIN via a bar code scanner  6 , a core set of data may be input into the handheld device, such as by touchscreen  8  input with a stylus or the like. The core set of data for a given vehicle includes the year, make, model and submodel of the vehicle. Although this core set of data will be helpful in looking up certain data about the vehicle, a full set of information will not be retrieved as with the VIN used as input. For example, the input of a VIN may provide information about that specific vehicle (e.g. if it has been involved in an accident) since the VIN is unique for each vehicle. (The decoded VIN will also indicate the year, make model, and submodel of the vehicle.) The core set of data cannot provide such detailed information since it refers to all such vehicles in that class (e.g. all 1999 Lincoln Navigators).  
         [0051]     The VIN may be used to check all government, public and private records regarding the vehicle for which the VIN has been entered as one of the identifiers of the vehicle. This may include but is not limited to registration information, title submissions, inspection records, sale records, police reports, insurance claims, service and repair records, manufacturer recall and other information. This information is typically obtained by connecting to external information servers  40  via the Internet, although some of this data may be cached and stored locally if desired.  
         [0052]     Once the VIN and/or core set of data is input to the handheld device, the data is stored locally on the handheld device and then transmitted to the communications manager  16  on the WAVIS server  14  via a wireless/wired Internet connection as well known in the art. The communications server  16  creates a record of the request and then refers to the user database  46  to ensure that the user is properly registered to the WAVIS system (step C). At step D, the communications server sends the user vehicle input to the information manager  18 , and information for the VIN entered may then be retrieved by one or more of the following methodologies at step E. A query may be formulated by the information manager  18 , directed at an external information server  40  that stores information regarding vehicles, such as CARFAX, KELLY BLUE BOOK, EDMUNDS, BLACK BOOK, MANHEIM, AUTOTRADER, EBAY, NADA, vehicle manufacturers, US Government agencies, and insurance agencies. The external information server  40  will receive the query and generate a response in a predetermined manner (step F); the response will be returned to the WAVIS server communications manager  16  for further processing (step G). The external information server will likely log the transaction, in particular if a fee is to be charged to the WAVIS server  14  on a per transaction basis (monthly or yearly fees may be charged in lieu of a transactional fee). In the alternative to a real-time query to an external information server  40 , blocks of information may be periodically downloaded to the WAVIS server for storage in WAVIS database  50  and processing locally. For example, MANHEIM may have an arrangement whereby it sends information to the WAVIS server  14  each month for a predetermined fee. In this case, real-time queries need not be made by the WAVIS server.  
         [0053]     At step H, the communication manager  16  formats the data for storage in the WAVIS database  50 , and then sends the data back to the handheld device  4 . The communications manager  16  also updates the usage database  48 . At step I, the communications manager  16  formats the data for display on the device (a device-dependent step), and transmits the information to the WAVIS device  4 .  
         [0054]     In addition to the VIN and/or core set of data input by a user, other data may be input by the user into the device  4  to assist in formulating a more accurate analysis of the valuation of the vehicle. The system will perform calculations based on all available information about a specific vehicle or category of vehicles and/or user criteria to provide value parameters. Information that might also be entered by a user into the handheld device  4  includes expected margin thresholds, expected competing vehicle thresholds, vehicle location history thresholds, vehicle ownership threshold, derogatory title information threshold, and inventory threshold for a category of vehicles.  
         [0055]     This user criteria is received by the WAVIS server  14  and utilized, along with information on the vehicle provided by the external information servers  40 , to provide the user with vehicle valuation information. The vehicle information may be presented to the user in any desired format. In addition, the WAVIS system may be able to reject a vehicle for purchase (e.g. if certain user-define parameters are met or exceeded), raise or lower a maximum buy price, predict the number of days expected to sell the vehicle in the user&#39;s market, provide an estimated sales price and any statistical or policy driven analysis possible with the given information.  
         [0056]     Three types of information are presented to the user by the WAVIS system. The first category is valuation information, which includes a combination of all available information for a particular vehicle or category of vehicles, any criteria provided by a user, any calculated values or information produced for the purpose of providing valuation for a vehicle or category of vehicles. The second category of information is user criteria and account information, which includes any of the information input by a user as well as the user account information. The third category of information provided to the user is report information, which is a record of system usage by the user, and may include all or some of the information stored in the WAVIS server for that particular user (or a group of users).  
         [0057]     The WAVIS system will be comprised of the components shown in  FIG. 1B  as now further described herein.  
         [0058]     The WAVIS database  50  will be comprised of a computer or group of computers/machines that may handle the storage of the following information: retrieved information  42 , calculated information  44 , user information  46 , system usage information  48 , handheld unit information, vendor information, and account information.  
         [0059]     The device  4  may be any device that can be used to access the WAVIS system and either input and/or retrieve information provided by the WAVIS system. A device may be used for the following functionality: VIN input and recording, core set input and recording, WAVIS system communication, and information retrieval and information input. A device may communicate with the WAVIS system by a wireless connection to a data provider or a wireless LAN connection with a PC or network server that handles communication with the WAVIS system.  
         [0060]     The following information may be provided by the WAVIS system. (This information can be tailored to National, Regional, City, County or individual Zip Code restrictions.)  
         [0061]     Wholesale Information—estimated average, rough &amp; clean wholesale values for a given week or month for similar or identical vehicles  
         [0062]     Historical Auction Information—recent selling price for similar or identical vehicles sold at auction; average miles for similar or identical vehicles sold at auction; average selling price for similar or identical vehicles sold at auction.  
         [0063]     Title/VIN related information—title history, registration records, accident reports, insurance claims, location history, ownership history, any title or registration related information.  
         [0064]     Competitive Data (within a chosen range of a given zip code)—number of similar or identical cars currently or recently for sale; average, high &amp; low asking price for similar or identical cars currently or recently for sale; average miles for similar or identical cars currently or recently for sale; focused immediate competition based on miles on vehicle and/or other features for similar or identical cars currently or recently for sale.  
         [0065]     Market Data—estimated retail value, estimated trade in value, estimated loan value.  
         [0066]     Condition—the standard terminology for vehicle condition according to the Black Book is used (rough, average, clean). In addition, the condition “extra clean” is implemented herein.  
         [0067]     A vendor system is any system by which the WAVIS system may communicate to retrieve information regarding a particular vehicle or category of vehicles based on a VIN or ‘Core Set’ or the combination of the two.  
         [0068]     A device may be anything that is capable of user input, communication with the WAVIS system, and display of at least some of the information provided by WAVIS. They may include but are not limited to a desktop PC, laptop PC, personal data assistants (PDAs), pocket PCs, tablet PCs, portable computers/scanning computers, pagers, phones, and web enabled phones.  
         [0069]     The wireless network will be any service, such as a cellular network or a local area network (LAN) (such as a Wi-Fi system) that will facilitate the functionality of the WAVIS system.