Matching users in a location-based service

• US 10,531,223 B2
• Filed: 11/21/2018
• Issued: 01/07/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Advanced New Technologies Company Limited (Ant Group Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
• Inventors: Li, Jiajia, Wang, Liang, Wang, Letao
• Primary Examiner(s): Gelin, Jean A
• Application Number:
  US16/198,026
• Publication Number:
  US 20190098447A1
• Time in Patent Office: 412 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3224 Transactions dependent on location of M-devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/11 Allocation or use of connection identifiers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/005 Discovery of network devices, e.g. terminals

Abstract

Embodiments of the present application relate to a method, apparatus, and system for matching users in connection with a Location-Based Service. The method includes receiving service messages from a plurality of terminals, wherein the service messages include communication attributes, geographic location information, and user feature identifiers, extracting the communication attributes, the geographic location information, and the user feature identifiers from the received service messages, determining whether two or more of the plurality of terminals are within a threshold range, determining whether the extracted user feature identifiers corresponding to the terminals are the same, and in the event that one or more of the plurality of terminals are within the threshold range and the extracted user feature identifiers are the same, setting a terminal of the one or more terminals as a message receiving terminal if a service message associated with the terminal includes a communication attribute corresponding to receiving.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving a plurality of service messages from a plurality of terminals, the plurality of service messages being associated with one or more transactions and respectively comprising an attribute corresponding to at least one transaction of the one or more transactions; and

matching a set of terminals with respect to the at least one transaction based at least in part on a determination that the set of terminals are within a threshold distance of each other and on a determination that the attributes comprised in the service messages of the set of terminals correspond to each other, wherein the attributes included in the service message of at least one terminal of the set of terminals comprises an indication of a role of the at least one terminal with respect to the at least one transaction.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the determination that the attributes comprised in the service messages of the set of terminals correspond to each other is based at least in part on determining that an indication of the service that a first terminal is requesting to receive matches an indication of the service that a second terminal is requesting to receive.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving of the service messages comprises:

receiving a first service message from a first terminal, wherein the first service message comprises an indication of a first transaction to be transacted with the first terminal, and an indication of a role of the first terminal with respect to at least one of the one or more transactions; and

receiving a second service message from a second terminal, wherein the second service message comprises an indication of a second transaction to be transacted with the second terminal, and an indication of a role of the second terminal with respect to at least one of the one or more transactions.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the plurality of service messages include communication attributes, geographic location information, and user feature identifiers, wherein the user feature identifier corresponding to the first service message comprises the indication of the first transaction, and wherein the user feature identifier corresponding to the second service message comprises the indication of the second transaction.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the first terminal and the second terminal are matched as two parties in connection with the same transaction based at least in part on the user feature identifiers respectively comprised in the first service message and the second service message.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the matching the first terminal and the second terminal in connection with the same transaction comprises:

obtaining the communication attributes, the geographic location information, the first user feature identifier, and the second user feature identifier from the received service messages;

determining whether two or more of the plurality of terminals are within a threshold range of each other;

determining whether the extracted first user feature identifier and the second user feature identifiers corresponding to the two or more of the plurality of terminals are the same; and

in response to determining that the two or more of the plurality of terminals are within the threshold range and the corresponding obtained user feature identifiers match, setting a terminal of the one or more of the plurality of terminals as a message receiving terminal if a service message associated with the terminal includes a communication attribute corresponding to receiving.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the user feature identifiers identify the one or more transactions.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

sending, to the message receiving terminal, one or more service messages which, among service messages that have geographic location information that is within the threshold range and that correspond to extracted user feature identifiers that are the same, have one or more corresponding communication attributes that correspond to sending;

or

sending, to the message receiving terminal, a list of one or more sending terminals corresponding to those service messages among the service messages that have geographic location information that is within the threshold range, that include the same user feature identifiers, and that have communication attributes that correspond to sending.

9. The method of claim 3, wherein at least one of the one or more transactions identified by the user feature identifiers is transacted between two or more of the plurality of terminals.

10. The method of claim 3, wherein the first terminal and the second terminal are matched as two parties in connection with the same transaction based at least in part on the indication of the first transaction comprised in the first service message and the indication of the second transaction comprised in the second service message.

11. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

in response to matching the first terminal and the second terminal as two parties in connection with the same transaction, providing an indication of the matching to the second terminal.

12. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

in response to matching the first terminal and the second terminal as two parties in connection with the same transaction, providing an indication of the matching to the second terminal.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the attributes comprised in the service messages corresponds to identifiers corresponding to at least one of the one or more transactions; and

the matching the set of terminals as two parties in connection with the same transaction further comprises determining that the identifiers comprised it the corresponding service messages correspond to each other.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the determining that the identifiers comprised it the corresponding service messages correspond to each other comprises:

determining that the service that the first terminal is requesting to receive corresponds to receiving a first payment in connection with the first transaction; and

determining that the service that the second terminal is requesting to receive corresponds to making a second payment in connection with the second transaction.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the determining that the indication of the service that the first terminal is requesting to receive matches the indication of the service that the second terminal is requesting to receive comprises:

determining that the service that the first terminal is requesting to receive corresponds to receiving a first payment in connection with the first transaction; and

determining that the service that the second terminal is requesting to receive corresponds to making a second payment in connection with the second transaction.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the determining that the identifiers comprised it the corresponding service messages correspond to each other comprises determining whether the first user feature identifier included in the first service message matches the second user feature identifier included in the second service message, and

wherein in response to determining that the first user feature identifier included in the first service message matches the second user feature identifier included in the second service message, the first terminal and the second terminal can be matched in relation to the transaction identified by the corresponding first service message and second service message.

17. A server, comprising:

at least one processor configured to;

receive a plurality of service messages from a plurality of terminals, the plurality of service messages being associated with one or more transactions and respectively comprising an attribute corresponding to at least one transaction of the one or more transactions; and

match a set of terminals with respect to the at least one transaction based at least in part on a determination that the set of terminals are within a threshold distance of each other and on a determination that the attributes comprised in the service messages of the set of terminals correspond to each other, wherein the attributes included in the service message of at least one terminal of the set of terminals comprises an indication of a role of the at least one terminal with respect to the at least one transaction; and

a memory coupled to the at least one processor and configured to provide the at least one processor with instructions.

18. A computer program product, the computer program product being embodied in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and comprising computer instructions for:

receiving a plurality of service messages from a plurality of terminals, the plurality of service messages being associated with one or more transactions and respectively comprising an attribute corresponding to at least one transaction of the one or more transactions; and

matching a set of terminals with respect to the at least one transaction based at least in part on a determination that the set of terminals are within a threshold distance of each other and on a determination that the attributes comprised in the service messages of the set of terminals correspond to each other, wherein the attributes included in the service message of at least one terminal of the set of terminals comprises an indication of a role of the at least one terminal with respect to the at least one transaction.