U.S. Patent Position Review — 19/476,586
DATA COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING TASK SCHEDULES TO SERVICE PROVIDERS
Published international application: PCT/AU2024/050370 / WO2024216337A1
Section 14 — TR-14
Scheduling
The end-to-end construction of a confirmed appointment from provider availability and customer timing preference, and its transmission to the provider.
Executive Finding
The publicly described workflow — estimate, availability, bid, book, project — maps stage for stage onto the schedule-generation and transmission portion of the patent architecture.
Observed Workflow
- Tasker Availability
- Customer Date / Time
- Appointment Window
- Bid
- Time Reservation
- Booking
- Confirmed Project
Patent Question
How does Taskrabbit's Estimate → Availability → Bid → Book sequence compare with the patent's construction of a task schedule?
Patent Architecture Sequence
- Provider Availability
- Task Duration
- Date / Time
- Task Schedule
Patent Position
United States Patent Application No. 19/476,586 — "DATA COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING TASK SCHEDULES TO SERVICE PROVIDERS"
Claimed Patent Element
- A task schedule is generated for the selected service provider and transmitted to that provider over the data communications network.
Specification / Embodiment Disclosure
- The specification describes the schedule reconciling the assigned duration, the provider's availability and the service location.
- Embodiments contemplate the schedule being updated and retransmitted as circumstances change.
Potential Future Patent Evolution
Potential Future Patent Development — Subject to Patent Attorney Review.
- Schedule construction across multiple engagements, automatic reconstruction on disruption and continuous re-optimisation.
Taskrabbit Position
- Booking produces a confirmed appointment issued to both parties and surfaced as a managed project in the application.
- Partner integration material describes the same sequence in machine-callable form: estimate, availability, bid, book, then project management.
- The reserved window is removed from the provider's presented availability once confirmed.
Public Evidence
Each record below opens the full source entry — extract, publication and access dates, direct URL and archived URL where available — without leaving this analysis.
Technical Alignment
- Schedule generation and transmission to the provider — the terminal stage of the architecture — is directly observable.
- The bid and reservation stages evidence a time-reservation mechanism rather than a simple booking record.
- The partner sequence shows the same pipeline reachable programmatically, which corresponds to the network-interface framing of the architecture.
Difference / Gap
- The schedule is constructed for a single engagement chosen by the customer rather than composed by the system across a provider's day.
- The architecture contemplates duration as an input to construction; here the window appears customer-selected.
Where Public Evidence Is Incomplete
- Whether the reservation step applies buffers or travel allowances is not publicly documented.
- The extent of partner-side automation in production integrations is not openly published.
Patent \u2194 Taskrabbit Mapping
| Patent element | Taskrabbit position | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Appointment scheduling | Partner API Availability and Book endpoints | Strong Observed Correspondence |
| Programmatic availability generation | Availability API returns real-time date/time windows | Strong Observed Correspondence |
| Booking of a selected window | Bid creates a project agreement for the chosen window; Book completes the booking | Strong Observed Correspondence |
| Patent-equivalent task schedule construction | Requires further analysis | Partial Correspondence |
| AI duration integrated into the schedule | Not established from public material | Not Publicly Established |
Bid Detail
- Taskrabbit's Bid API states that once a customer chooses a desired date/time window, a project agreement is created for that window.
- Bid parameters include a target start time, described as the earliest time a Tasker can begin a project.
Book Detail
- The Book endpoint completes the booking from the previously created project agreement.
- Project status endpoints support post-booking management.
Patent Architecture Beyond Publicly Observed Functionality
The following matters are contemplated by the patent architecture and have not been established from Taskrabbit's public material. Absence of public evidence is not evidence that the functionality is absent from the company's internal technology stack.
- Multi-engagement schedule composition and automatic retransmission on change are contemplated architecturally and are not publicly established.
Evidence Confidence
The consumer booking outcome is directly observable and corroborated by help documentation; the partner-side stage sequence is described in integration material rather than in an openly published reference.
Strategic Interpretation
- This is the stage where marketplace and scheduling architectures visibly converge, and it is well evidenced on both sides.
- The partner workflow is the most direct public evidence that the pipeline is a system interface rather than only a consumer experience.