Patents Assigned to HomeAway.com, Inc.
  • Patent number: 11687983
    Abstract: Review data associated with a guest experience at an event, such as a vacation rental, for example, is transmitted over a communications network to one or more networked computing devices for processing the review data into a review data file for publication. The review data may be generated by an application executing on a processor of a client device such as a smartphone, tablet or pad. The review data may include access credentials and location data that may be processed to validate that the review data is legitimate. The review data may include media content captured in-situ at the event while the guest is experiencing the event. Prior to publishing a review data file, an owner may receive a notice and/or a copy of the pending review data file and the owner may take action to cure a less than stellar review and/or amend the review prior to publication.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 9, 2020
    Date of Patent: June 27, 2023
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventors: Ryan Hedley Turner, Daniel Steven Haligas, Velayudhan Venugopal, Alex Holm Devine
  • Patent number: 11218432
    Abstract: Inquiry data from one or more sources (e.g., client devices) may be analyzed to determine if key terms, date terms, and locality terms are indicative of an event to occur at a locality during one or more dates. Events that are detected may be communicated (e.g., via an electronic message(s)). An owner of a property may receive the electronic message(s) that are communicated for detected events and the owner may act to garner interest in stays at their property. Travelers searching for a property to stay at during the event may receive the electronic message(s) in the form of an offer (e.g., an email, a text message, a Tweet, a newsletter, etc.). The inquiry data may be received in real time and/or may be accessed from a data store. The Inquiry data may be curated to remove non-essential information and/or to include edited key terms, date terms, and locality terms.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 4, 2022
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventor: Brent T. Schneeman
  • Patent number: 11023876
    Abstract: Embodiments relate generally to computer software and computing devices, and more particularly, to a system, an apparatus and a method configured to segregate data at an interface of a computing device to facilitate on-line electronic payment transactions. In one embodiment, a method includes presenting fields configured to accept a first type of data and to accept a second type of data for an on-line electronic payment transaction. The method includes generating an initialization signal for transmission to an isolated data management system to initialize a portion of a memory associated with first type of data, responsive to an interaction with a field, receiving data from the field, and generating a save signal to save the data from the field in a portion of the memory. This can be responsive to a second interaction with the field.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 26, 2018
    Date of Patent: June 1, 2021
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventors: Brent T. Schneeman, Dennis Kashkin, Eric M. Carr, Mark R. Reynolds, Matthew W. Kinman, Charles R. Poff, III, Douglas A. Squires, Daniel A. Herrera
  • Patent number: 10990636
    Abstract: A network-based service is disclosed for identifying travel properties of interest to a user based on historical data reflecting amenity use at the travel properties. The service may, for example, list a number of travel properties available for occupation by a user. The service may be in communication with amenity-associated devices of one or more travel properties, such as home automation devices. Provided that all occupants consent, the service may utilize data from amenity-associated devices to anonymously track usage of amenities at the properties. When a user searches for properties, historical data regarding past amenity use can be used to enrich search results. For example, where the user desires a property with a given amenity, results can be sorted based on actual usage of the amenity across properties. This can enable the user to determine the real-world benefits of the amenity with greater accuracy.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 20, 2018
    Date of Patent: April 27, 2021
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventor: Scott Jared Beaudreau
  • Patent number: 10884844
    Abstract: Various embodiments relate generally to electrical and electronic hardware, computer software and systems for controlling a data stream processor configured to detect and/or resolve anomalies in data streams including message data. In particular, a system, a device and a method may be configured to access multiple data streams and to detect an anomaly, in real-time or in substantially real-time, that is associated with at least one of the data streams accessed by a data stream processor. In some examples, a method can include one or more of receiving message data to facilitate a computerized rental of property, classifying subset of messages, fetching the classified messages to form multiple data streams, accessing the data stream to indemnity a stream characteristic, detecting an anomaly based on an identified stream characteristic, and generating anomaly resolution data to counteract the detected anomaly.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 22, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 5, 2021
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventor: Rene X. Parra
  • Patent number: 10803497
    Abstract: Review data associated with a guest experience at an event, such as a vacation rental, for example, is transmitted over a communications network to one or more networked computing devices for processing the review data into a review data file for publication. The review data may be generated by an application executing on a processor of a client device such as a smartphone, tablet or pad. The review data may include access credentials and location data that may be processed to validate that the review data is legitimate. The review data may include media content captured in-situ at the event while the guest is experiencing the event. Prior to publishing a review data file, an owner may receive a notice and/or a copy of the pending review data file and the owner may take action to cure a less than stellar review and/or amend the review prior to publication.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 10, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 13, 2020
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventors: Ryan Hedley Turner, Daniel Steven Haligas, Velayudhan Pillai Venugopal, Alex Holm Devine
  • Patent number: 10791073
    Abstract: Inquiry data from one or more sources (e.g., client devices) may be analyzed to determine if key terms, date terms, and locality terms are indicative of an event to occur at a locality during one or more dates. Events that are detected may be communicated (e.g., via an electronic message(s)). An owner of a property may receive the electronic message(s) that are communicated for detected events and the owner may act to garner interest in stays at their property. Travelers searching for a property to stay at during the event may receive the electronic message(s) in the form of an offer (e.g., an email, a text message, a Tweet, a newsletter, etc.). The inquiry data may be received in real time and/or may be accessed from a data store. The Inquiry data may be curated to remove non-essential information and/or to include edited key terms, date terms, and locality terms.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 17, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 29, 2020
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventor: Brent T. Schneeman
  • Patent number: 10776888
    Abstract: A datastore that includes property listings (e.g., for rental properties) may be accessed by a computing resource configured to execute a thumb printing algorithm to generate summary data values (e.g., thumbprint values, hash values) of digital data included one or more images of a property listing. The summary data values along with listing attributes (e.g., address, zip code, geolocation, brand, number of bedrooms/bathrooms/sleeps, amenities) of the property listing may be compared with summary data values and listing attributes of other property listings to determine if the summary data values of one or more images match and if one or more listing attributes match. A threshold number of image matches and listing attribute matches may indicate that the property listings are duplicate property listings, which may be merged, removed or replaced with links/pointers by the computer resource to increase data storage space and/or reduce data search latency times of the datastore.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2017
    Date of Patent: September 15, 2020
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventors: Ronald William Corbett, Bryon Kristen Jacob, David Petty
  • Patent number: 10650475
    Abstract: Various embodiments relate generally to a system, a device and a method for providing a panel-based search interface as a function of incremental entry of user data, such as text representing a destination. Data representing user input is received at a search interface presented by a listing management system. One or more panel objects are determined based on the user input. Data representing one or more interests associated with the user input is retrieved. The one or more panel objects and the data representing the one or more interests are rendered within the search interface. Responsive to the received user input, the search interface comprising the rendered one or more panel objects and the data representing the one or more interests is provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 20, 2016
    Date of Patent: May 12, 2020
    Assignee: HOMEAWAY.COM, INC.
    Inventors: Robert Berg, Robert Burns
  • Patent number: 10592476
    Abstract: Various embodiments relate generally to a system, a device and a method provide for enabling clients to expose secured files via virtual hosts. A request may be received from a user device such that the request is associated with a content item. The request may include a file path and a content identifier. A host name of the file path may be determined from the request. Data representing a physical location of the content item within a file storage system may then be determined based on a mapped bucket associated with the host name and the content identifier. The content item may be retrieved based on the data representing the physical location within the file storage system and provided to the user device responsive to the request.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 19, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 17, 2020
    Assignee: HOMEAWAY.COM, INC.
    Inventors: Bryon Kristen Jacob, Ronald William Corbett
  • Patent number: 10559150
    Abstract: Systems and methods are described for detecting that a potential renter of a property is being fraudulently impersonated by a third party during electronic communications with an owner or lessor of the property. Data representing an exchange of electronic messages between an inquirer and a responder are obtained, and may be anonymized to prevent the parties from learning one another's identity prior to completing the transaction. The data may be compared to historical inquiries sent by the inquirer, historical inquiries received by the recipient, or other content of the electronic messages to determine a degree of risk that the inquirer's account has been compromised or is otherwise being fraudulently represented. The degree of risk may be communicated to the recipient, and may be acted upon by, e.g., blocking messages from an inquirer whose degree of risk exceeds a threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 2019
    Date of Patent: February 11, 2020
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventors: Jonathan S. Monette, Aaron Miller, Jeffrey A. Bloom
  • Patent number: 10504312
    Abstract: A computing device may be configured to transition control over one or more functions of a rental unit to a user (e.g., a traveler) based on one or more of time, geo-location and access credentials. Access may be granted to the traveler to use one or more home automation functions including a HVAC system, a thermostat, lighting, security alarm, automated door locks, etc. An owner of the rental unit may have access to some or all of the home automation functions blocked during the traveler's stay at the rental unit, and at an end of the stay owner access to those functions may be enabled. Some functions may be activated prior to the traveler's arrival at the unit based on a time to arrival and/or distance from the unit. An application on a traveler's computing device may be configured to summon a repair service for the unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 2, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 10, 2019
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventors: Ryan Hedley Turner, Daniel Steven Haligas, Velayudhan Pillai Venugopal, Alex Holm Devine
  • Patent number: 10339487
    Abstract: The present application relates generally to systems, software and electronic commerce. More specifically, systems, methods and software to reconcile free-text with structured data are disclosed. Structured data may be in the form, for example, of a set of attributes designated as associated with an occupiable property. Free-text may be parsed and one or more terms, words, phrases or the like may be extracted by the parsing and compared with the structured data to determine if there is a difference between the structured data and the free-text it is compared with. Detected differences may be reported (e.g., to an endpoint) in real-time or near real-time and may include a suggestion or recommendation to change the free-text to more closely match the structured data or to change the structured data to more closely match the free-text, or both, for example. An endpoint may be a client device such as a smartphone, tablet, pad, or the like.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 7, 2014
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2019
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventor: Brent T. Schneeman
  • Patent number: 10304270
    Abstract: Various embodiments relate generally to electrical and electronic hardware, computer software and systems, wired and wireless network communications, and wearable computing devices for establishing a secure, closed-loop communication channel for authorizing access to rental properties. More specifically, a system, a device and a method are configured to facilitate authorization via secure communications between an inquiring entity and a responding entity to access a rental property. In one or more embodiments, a method can include establishing a data arrangement representing a messaging dialog between an inquirer and a responder. The messaging dialog may include data representing exchange of electronic messages. Further, the method may include suppressing transmission of the identity data of the inquirer and the responder during the exchange of the electronic messages to form secured messages, and generating anonymized transaction data representing authorization to access the rental property.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 6, 2015
    Date of Patent: May 28, 2019
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventors: Jonathan S. Monette, Aaron Miller, Jeffrey A. Bloom
  • Patent number: 10268414
    Abstract: Various embodiments relate generally to electrical and electronic hardware, computer software and systems, and wired and wireless network communications for establishing a data stream processor configured to regulate consumption of message data. A system and method are configured to throttle data from a client computing device, whereby the detection of the subset of message data is accessed in real-time as message data streams through or adjacent to the data stream processor. In some examples, a method can include receiving message data including calls to access a pool of data, classifying a subset of messages, appending the classified subset of messages to a partition of memory, fetching the classified subset of messages to form a data stream, accessing the data stream by a data stream processor to extract a stream characteristic, monitoring a state of the data stream based on the stream characteristic against a threshold, and generating throttle data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 15, 2018
    Date of Patent: April 23, 2019
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventor: Rene X. Parra
  • Patent number: 10257648
    Abstract: Various embodiments relate generally to electrical and electronic hardware, computer software, wired and wireless network communications, and wearable computing devices for identifying activities and/or destinations of relative importance. More specifically, a system, a device and a method are provided to determine interactions at a mobile computing device predict activities based on one or more types of interactions. Examples of activities include preferential activities available at a geographic region association with lodging. In one or more embodiments, a method can include receiving data representing an interaction with a user interface, generating data summarizing the interaction to include an interaction type, and determining data representing a prioritized value indicative of a degree of the interaction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2017
    Date of Patent: April 9, 2019
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventors: Ryan Hedley Turner, Daniel Steven Haligas, Velayudhan Pillai Venugopal, Alex Holm Devine
  • Patent number: 10108480
    Abstract: Various embodiments relate generally to electrical and electronic hardware, computer software and systems for controlling a data stream processor configured to detect and/or resolve anomalies in data streams including message data. In particular, a system, a device and a method may be configured to access multiple data streams and to detect an anomaly, in real-time or in substantially real-time, that is associated with at least one of the data streams accessed by a data stream processor. In some examples, a method can include one or more of receiving message data to facilitate a computerized rental of property, classifying subset of messages, fetching the classified messages to form multiple data streams, accessing the data stream to indemnity a stream characteristic, detecting an anomaly based on an identified stream characteristic, and generating anomaly resolution data to counteract the detected anomaly.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 6, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 23, 2018
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventor: Rene X. Parra
  • Patent number: 10062128
    Abstract: Various embodiments relate generally to a system, a device and a method provide for accessing data across multiple disparate systems via a graph data structure. A request associated with a data object in a listing management system may be received. An identifier associated with the data object may then be determined. One or more nodes in a knowledge graph may then be traversed responsive to the identifier and the request associated with the data object. Data items are retrieved from the one or more nodes in the knowledge graph based on the request. Responsive to the received request, a proxy object comprising the retrieved one or more data items is then provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 12, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 28, 2018
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventors: Bryon Kristen Jacob, Ronald William Corbett
  • Patent number: 10031644
    Abstract: Aggregated traveler data may be accessed by subscribers to a content management system. Subscriber data in access requests from one or more subscribers may be used to describe a pool of travelers in the aggregated traveler data that may be concentrated in a geographic location. Location data, temporal data or both, from one or more electronic sources and/or data stores may be processed to determine if a selected traveler will be positioned within a threshold of an allowable distance from an allowable event in the geographic location at a time coincident with an event time window for the allowable event. Selected travelers who meet location and/or temporal parameters may be targeted to receive customized content for events including activities, services, goods, suggestions, and recommendations from subscribers. A subscriber may own a rental property in the geographic location that is rented by a selected traveler.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 12, 2015
    Date of Patent: July 24, 2018
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventors: Ryan Hedley Turner, Daniel Steven Haligas, Velayudhan Pillai Venugopal, Alex Holm Devine
  • Patent number: 10001943
    Abstract: Various embodiments relate generally to electrical and electronic hardware, computer software and systems, and wired and wireless network communications for establishing a data stream processor configured to regulate consumption of message data. A system and method are configured to throttle data from a client computing device, whereby the detection of the subset of message data is accessed in real-time as message data streams through or adjacent to the data stream processor. In some examples, a method can include receiving message data including calls to access a pool of data, classifying a subset of messages, appending the classified subset of messages to a partition of memory, fetching the classified subset of messages to form a data stream, accessing the data stream by a data stream processor to extract a stream characteristic, monitoring a state of the data stream based on the stream characteristic against a threshold, and generating throttle data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 6, 2015
    Date of Patent: June 19, 2018
    Assignee: HomeAway.com, Inc.
    Inventor: Rene X. Parra