Method of determining geographical location from IP address information

• US 20050108244A1
• Filed: 12/22/2003
• Published: 05/19/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 11/13/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Whereonearth Ltd. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Patel, Devesh, Riise, Soren
• Granted Patent: US 7,752,210 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/919 Geographic
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

A method of determining a geographical location from IP address information comprising: interrogating a database of IP address information mapped to domain name information by submitting a given IP address; the database returning a domain name in response to the given IP address; deriving one or more likely web site addresses from the domain name; and scanning the or each derived web site address for geographical address information to determine likely geographical address information.

Claims

1. A method of determining a geographical location from IP address information comprising:

interrogating a database of IP address information mapped to domain name information by submitting a given IP address;

the database returning a domain name in response to the given IP address;

deriving one or more likely web site addresses from, the domain name; and

scanning the site of the or each derived web site address for geographical address information to determine likely geographical address information.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the geographical address information includes a street level address.

3. A method according to claim 1 comprising geocoding the geographical address information to provide an accurate longitude and latitude for that geographical address.

4. A method according to claim 1 comprising repeating the method for a plurality of IP addresses.

5. A method according to claim 4 comprising building a database of IP addresses and a record of at least one of the group consisting of:

a Domain Name corresponding to the IP address;

a likely web site address;

geographical address information derived from the web site; and

the longitude and latitude information geocoded from the geographical address information.

6. A method according to claim 1, wherein the given IP address is selected from a group of IP addresses used for web access.

7. A computer program or tool comprising computer program code, or code, adapted to determine a geographical location from IP address information, when said program is run on a computer, by:

interrogating a database of IP address information mapped to domain name information by submitting a given IP address;

the database returning a domain name in response to the given IP address;

deriving one or more likely web site addresses from the domain name; and

scanning the site of the or each derived web site address for geographical address information to determine likely geographical address information.

8. A computer program as claimed in claim 7 embodied on a computer readable medium.

9. A system for determining a geographical location from IP address information comprising:

an interrogation unit to interrogate a database of IP address information mapped to domain name information by submitting a given IP address and to return, a domain name in response to a given IP address;

a unit operable to derive one or more likely web site addresses for the domain name; and

a scanner to scan the site of the or each derived web site address for geographical address information to determine likely geographical address information.