Geofence information delivery systems and methods

• US 10,547,697 B2
• Filed: 02/23/2018
• Issued: 01/28/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 06/02/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: GeoFrenzy, Inc
• Original Assignee: GeoFrenzy, Inc
• Inventors: Jones, Benjamin T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Hitesh
• Application Number:
  US15/903,920
• Publication Number:
  US 20180191846A1
• Time in Patent Office: 704 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/604 Tools and structures for managing or administering access control systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2111 Location-sensitive, e.g. geographical location, GPS
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/006 in accordance with predefined flight zones, e.g. to avoid prohibited zones
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0069 specially adapted for an unmanned aircraft
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2816 Controlling appliance services of a home automation network by calling their functionalities arrangements in telecontrol or telemetry systems for selectively calling a substation from a main station; in which substation desired apparatus is selected for applying a control signal thereto or for obtaining measured values therefrom H04Q9/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/6418 Hybrid transport
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/659 Internet protocol version 6 [IPv6] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/69 using geographic information, e.g. room number
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5007 Internet protocol [IP] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/563 Data redirection of data network streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/08 Access security
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences

Abstract

The present invention is directed to methods and systems for querying a database of geofences, with each geofence in the database being associated with a plurality of IP addresses, preferably IPv6 addresses, and each IP address corresponding to a specific geographic coordinate. The method and system convert location coordinates to IP addresses and determine whether a location anchor point is associated with a geofence.

Claims

1. A method for delivering geofence information by one or more processors, comprising the steps of:

generating a Domain Name System (DNS) request comprising a geographic location;

converting the geographic location to an Internet Protocol (IP) address and matching the IP address to at least one anchor IP address, wherein a single anchor IP address of the at least one anchor IP address is a unique identifier of a geofence and is a geofence address;

identifying at least one geofence associated with the at least one anchor IP address; and

creating a DNS response, wherein the DNS response comprises information describing the at least one identified geofence, including the at least one anchor IP address and a plurality of additional IP addresses associated with the at least one geofence;

wherein the IP address, the at least one anchor IP address, and the plurality of additional IP addresses are Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) addresses; and

wherein converting the geographic location to the IP address comprises using the geographic location as a database key and querying a geofence database with data stored thereon for IPv6 addresses, including anchor IP addresses for geofences.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a second request; and

creating a second response to the second request wherein the second response comprises fence points of the at least one identified geofence.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the geographic location is related to least one region of interest (ROI).

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the information describing the at least one identified geofence comprises an indication whether the at least one geofence is verified or unverified, a class of the at least one geofence, an entitlement of the at least one geofence, a time-to-live value, or a context summary of the at least one geofence.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying the DNS request, the IP address, the at least one anchor IP address, and/or the information describing the at least one identified geofence via a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the information describing the at least one identified geofence further comprises boundaries of the at least one identified geofence and the GUI comprises an interactive map showing the boundaries of the at least one identified geofence.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the interactive map is a 2-dimensional (2D) map.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the geographic location is defined by manual input through a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

9. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the at least one geofence is non-centroidal in shape.

10. A system for delivering geofence information by one or more processors, comprising:

at least one device having a processor coupled with a memory, wherein the at least one device is constructed and configured for wireless communication with a server computer including a geofence database;

wherein the at least one device generates a Domain Name System (DNS) request comprising a geographic location and sends the DNS request to the server computer;

wherein the server computer converts the geographic location to an Internet Protocol (IP) address using the geographic location as a database key by querying the geofence database, wherein the geofence database includes data for IPv6 addresses, including anchor IP addresses for geofences;

wherein the server computer matches the IP address to at least one anchor IP address, wherein a single anchor IP address of the at least one anchor IP address is a unique identifier of a geofence and is a geofence address;

wherein the server computer identifies at least one geofence associated with the at least one anchor IP address;

wherein the server computer creates a DNS response, wherein the DNS response comprises information describing the at least one identified geofence, including the at least one anchor IP address and a plurality of additional IP addresses associated with the at least one geofence; and

wherein the IP address, the at least one anchor IP address, and the plurality of additional IP addresses are Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) addresses.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein:

the at least one device generates a second request; and

the server computer creates a second response to the second request wherein the second response comprises fence points of the at least one identified geofence.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the geographic location is related to least one region of interest (ROI).

13. The system of claim 10 wherein the information describing the at least one identified geofence comprises an indication whether the at least one geofence is verified or unverified, a class of the at least one geofence, an entitlement of the at least one geofence, a time-to-live value, or a context summary of the at least one geofence.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the at least one device displays the DNS request, the IP address, the at least one anchor IP address, and/or the information describing the at least one identified geofence via a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the information describing the at least one identified geofence further comprises boundaries of the at least one identified geofence and the GUI comprises an interactive map showing the boundaries of the at least one identified geofence.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the interactive map is a 2-dimensional (2D) map.

17. The system of claim 10, wherein the geographic location is defined by manual input through a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

18. The system of claim 10, wherein at least one of the at least one geofence is non-centroidal in shape.