Delhivery bags second US patent to filter overlapping addresses

Gurugram-based logistics company Delhivery has received a patent for a unique address identification system (UAID) from US Patents and Trademark Office. The system breaks down new addresses and then compares them with addresses that have been serviced before. This allows them to identify overlapping locations even if the address information entered by the customers is slightly different.

UAID is a follow up to another Delhivery solution called Addix, for which they received a patent by the US Patents and Trademark in May. Addfix takes unstructured and incomplete addresses provided by customers and then parses and breaks them down into multiple geographical parameters such as city, town, locality, sub-locality, street, landmark, building, floor number, identification number, postal code.

Delhivery claims that with UAID it can map the delivery time accurately and bundle packages for the same address, which would in turn make their delivery system more efficient.

The patent for UAID was filed in October 2020 in the name of Kabir Rustogi, who was the head of data sciences at Delhivery back then. In the patent application Delhivery said that the identification of plurality of hierarchical address blocks may be done using data processing techniques including machine learning (ML), fuzzy learning, pattern matching.

Address discovery is a major challenge in India. Delivery service providers handle millions of orders every year and misdirected mail entails significant loss of resource and money for them, according to the company.

Delhivery serves over 23,000 clients and encounters unstructured data on a daily basis, said Kapil Bharati, executive director, and chief technology officer at Delhivery.

“The two patents help us to improve the legibility of locations and addresses and reiterates our commitment to invest in proprietary AI/ML capabilities that can drive high precision logistics operations in any geography,” Bharati added.

Rajiv Dinesh, head of Data Products at Delhivery explains, “Our ML systems help us identify that Delhivery Ltd, Sec - 44 Gurugram -122001 is referring to the same address as Delhivery, Plot 5, Sector 44, Gurgaon, near Taj City Center - 122003, which has been serviced before.”

Dinesh noted that using the data intelligence from over 1.4 billion parcels delivered by the company is enabling them to deliver more accurately, efficiently, and on time.