How Locus Walks the Talk Around Innovation With A Focus on Patents

Innovation has been one of the core values of Locus. We believe in innovation creating a meaningful impact on people’s lives. It spurred our founders to create an application for women’s safety, eventually making Locus into what it is today: a real-world ready Dispatch Management Platform for last-mile excellence. 

Right from day one, we take pride in being first-principle thinkers with a solution-focused approach to simplifying complexities. All for enabling businesses to deliver unparalleled customer experiences in the last mile. 

One of the tangible ways we commit to this form of innovation consistently and visibly is by encouraging team members to file patents in their names. In 2018, we rolled out a unique internal policy to empower them with the training, support, and direction needed to master the intricate Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) process. The patents that have been filed cover diverse technologies and core aspects of last-mile fulfillment, such as Machine Learning, Route Optimization, Geocoding, and even Vehicle Utilization.

Innovation with Impact

Our efforts have been consistently reaping the rewards. As of this year, we have been granted five patents, three of which were granted in 2022! Our latest patent is titled, “Geocoding Methods And Systems Of Correcting Latitude And Longitude of a Point of Interest.” 

Before Locus can unleash its powerful optimization engine, a very crucial input is the map location of where the deliveries have to be made. If the location is incorrect, the optimization output becomes irrelevant. This is where geocoding becomes critical to find accurate delivery locations on the map. In many regions where Locus operates, no standardized information and database is available, making geocoding a tough problem. 

Locus’ team members solved this problem with a unique geocoding solution that converts poorly written or ambiguous addresses into accurate latitudes and longitudes. This solution is the prime driver in ensuring on-time delivery and a top-notch consumer experience by ensuring seamless last-mile fulfillment. The patent covers the processes by which a high level of accuracy is brought to the geocoding solution by correcting the latitudes and longitudes assigned to a given address. 

“To constantly add value to our growing customer base across 30+ geographies, we at Locus, are pushing our engineering boundaries each day”, said Geet Garg, Founder & CTO, Locus. “The latest patent highlights our relentless effort to bring out new levels of innovation in our product suite, enabling enterprises across industries to drive high-precision logistics operations in any geography, reduce costs and achieve business success.” 

“Innovation lives within our DNA and we believe that every employee should have an equal opportunity to contribute to the next best idea”, said Nishith Rastogi, Founder & CEO of Locus. 

“Thus, with the goal to cultivate an environment of entrepreneurship and creativity, we introduced this policy to empower and support our team in their commitment to solving challenges of the last-mile logistics.”

Setting the foundation for innovation

The other two key patents granted to Locus are titled ”Methods and System of Using N-Gram Analysis to Discover Points of Interests in a given Geographic region” and “Machine Learning Models for Predicting Time in Traffic.”

The first patent covers another system that lends a high degree of accuracy to Locus’ geocoding solution. As Locus’ clients execute their plans on the platform through their delivery networks, location information on where the delivery was completed is collected. Now, against a text address, there is a latitude and longitude available. The problem arises when the latitude and longitude is not marked exactly at the delivery location as the delivery person could have marked it elsewhere while doing the job. The address will contain text mentioning its name, premise, locality, city, and zip code along with extraneous information.

The process that is patented first identifies the premise of the delivery location accurately amongst all the various latitudes and longitudes collected. It then assigns the right address location under the right premise using the data collected from the delivery process, which makes it highly accurate.

The second patent covers the predictability of last-mile deliveries, a logistical challenge that affects businesses across various sectors such as e-commerce, 3PLs, etc. Locus’s new patent will enable enterprises to achieve better precision in their last-mile deliveries by factoring in traffic patterns that were previously considered too dynamic to map. The patent covers unique technology that analyzes the historical traffic data and predicts the travel time between origin and destination locations. It also factors in sub-variables such as day of the week and time of the day to provide hyper-accurate estimated travel times for logistics providers to get ahead.

With our foundation in place, we believe that in the future, more and more patents will continue to be filed by our team that will have a lasting impact on enabling last-mile excellence in new and exciting ways.