PLATFORM TO ENABLE SHARING OF LOCATION INFORMATION FROM A SINGLE DEVICE TO MULTIPLE DEVICES IN RANGE OF COMMUNICATION

• US 20070282678A1
• Filed: 06/01/2006
• Published: 12/06/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/01/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Dendi, Vikram, Liu, Zicheng
• Application Number:
  US11/421,713
• Publication Number:
  US 20070282678A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.110
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0208 Trade or exchange of goods or services in exchange for incentives or rewards
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/14 between corresponding nodes

Abstract

The claimed subject matter can provide an architecture to facilitate widespread and economical access to location information as well as maintaining a healthy and robust location-based services ecosystem. The architecture can employ a variety of incentive mechanisms to encourage location-enabled devices to share location information with other devices that do not have location-enabled functionality. The incentives can also encourage novel uses for location-based services and/or promote new markets in that space. In addition, the architecture can employ techniques such as radiolocation to increase the accuracy of the location for the portable device relative to the known position of the location-enabled device.

Claims

1. A system that provides convenient and economical access to location information, comprising:

a portable electronic device; and

a location-enabled device that communicates with the portable electronic device and determines a location of the portable electronic device based at least in part upon a location of the location-enabled device.

2. The system of claim 1, the location-enabled device communicates wirelessly with the portable electronic device.

3. The system of claim 1, the location-enabled device is at least one of a kiosk and a portable device.

4. The system of claim 1, the location of the location-enabled device is determined based upon at least one of a global positioning system (GPS), an assisted GPS, a global system for mobile communications localization, radiolocation, information from a second location-enabled device, and a fixed address location.

5. The system of claim 1, the location of the portable electronic device is determined based upon at least one of triangulation, maximum transmission range, radiolocation and information from a second location-enabled device.

6. The system of claim 1, the location-enabled device transmits the location of the portable electronic device to the portable electronic device.

7. The system of claim 1, the location-enabled device transmits the location of the portable electronic device to the portable electronic device in exchange for an incentive.

8. The system of claim 7, the incentive is at least one of money, a credit, a debit, a coupon, a reward point, an advertisement right, a location resale right, an access right, a product and a service.

9. The system of claim 1, the location-enabled device transmits to a third device location information associated with the portable electronic device.

10. The system of claim 9, the third device employs the location information to determine that the portable electronic device is within close proximity to at least one of the location-enabled device and the third device.

11. The system of claim 9, the location-enabled device transmits the location information when the portable electronic device leaves a designated vicinity.

12. The system of claim 1, the location-enabled device broadcasts a signal that indicates a desire to transmit location information.

13. The system of claim 1, the location-enabled device provides location information upon a pull request from the portable electronic device.

14. The system of claim 1, the location-enabled device is an radio frequency (RF)-enabled stereo.

15. A computer-implemented method for facilitating location-based services for devices that are not location-enabled, comprising:

establishing a connection between a location-enabled device and a portable device;

determining a location of the portable device based at least in part upon a position of the location-enabled device; and

providing an incentive for sharing information associated with the location.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising employing radiolocation to increase the accuracy of the location.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising sharing the information with at least one of the portable device and a third device.

18. The method of claim 15, the establishing a connection is a result of at least one of a push transaction and a pull transaction.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising employing the location in connection with an application.

20. A system for facilitating location-based services, comprising:

means for providing an incentive to share location information;

means for accurately determining a location of a mobile device; and

means for communicating the location information.