Common location-based service adapter interface for location based services

• US 20030172125A1
• Filed: 02/15/2002
• Published: 09/11/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 02/15/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NNG LLC
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Chen, Xiaoyan, Miller, Steven M., Bennett, Valerie M., Batra, Virinder M., Capella, Andrew N., Gamble, Peter R., Ding, Xiao Cheng
• Granted Patent: US 8,001,207 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries

Abstract

The present invention is a common location-based service adapter interface. The common location-based service adapter interface can include a uniform input interface through which location-based services can be requested using a uniform format which is independent of any specific formatting required by a particular service adapter configured to process the location-based services. The common location-based service adapter interface also can include a uniform output interface through which specifically formatted result sets can be formatted using the uniform format.

Claims

1. A method of processing requests from location-based service applications for location-based services provided by a plurality of disparate location-based service providers, comprising the steps of the location service:

receiving requests for location based-services;

determining from each said request a particular location-based service provider which can service said request;

specifically formatting each said request according to a specific format specified by said particular location-based service provider;

uniformly formatting each said result set; and

,

forwarding said uniformly formatted result sets to the location-based service applications.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said uniformly formatted result sets are result sets which have been formatted according to the Geography Markup Language (GML).

3. A common location-based service adapter interface, comprising:

a uniform input interface through which location-based services can be requested using a uniform format which is independent of any specific formatting required by a particular service adapter configured to process said location-based services; and

,

and a uniform output interface through which specifically formatted result sets can be formatted using said uniform format.

4. The common location-based service adapter interface of claim 3, wherein said uniform input interface comprises:

a plurality of location-based service adapter objects, each said adapter object being configured to provide said at least one location-based service responsive to receiving a uniformly formatted location-based service request;

a location service object configured to provide a reference to a particular one of said location-based service adapter objects based upon a specified location-based service; and

,

a plurality of location request objects configured to define location-based service to request parameters required by generic ones of said location-based service adapter objects.

5. A machine readable storage having stored thereon a computer program for processing requests from location-based service applications for location-based services provided by a plurality of disparate location-based service providers, the computer program comprising a routine set of instructions for causing the machine to perform the steps of:

receiving requests for location based-services;

determining from each said request a particular location-based service provider which can service said request;

specifically formatting each said request according to a specific format specified by said particular location-based service provider, and uniformly formatting each said result set; and

,

forwarding said uniformly formatted result sets to the location-based service applications.

6. The machine readable storage of claim 5, wherein said uniformly formatted result sets are result sets which have been formatted according to the Geography Markup Language (GML).