LOCATION BASED NOTIFICATION SERVICES

• US 20080032666A1
• Filed: 08/07/2006
• Published: 02/07/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/07/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Hughes, Richard L., Krumm, John C.
• Application Number:
  US11/462,903
• Publication Number:
  US 20080032666A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/404.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72457 according to geographic location
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/04 with alarm systems, e.g. fire, police or burglar alarm systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/08 User group management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/12 Messaging; Mailboxes; Announcements

Abstract

The subject disclosure pertains to systems and methods for facilitating provision of location based alerts or notifications to a plurality of mobile devices. An alert system can manage a set of accounts corresponding to the plurality of mobile devices. User accounts can include permissions controlling access to location information for the corresponding mobile devices. A single user can control multiple accounts by creating an independent account and one or more related dependent accounts controlled by the independent account. A user account can include a set of user-defined alerts triggered by the juxtaposition of users, geographic locations and/or events. Alerts delivered to a mobile device can include a simple text message and/or actionable data, such as location information, phone numbers and the like.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented system for facilitating provision of location-based alerts for a plurality of mobile devices, comprising:

an alert manager component that manages a location-based alert for a user account associated with a user device; and

an account manager component that manages at least one permission for the user account, the at least one permission controls access to location information for a mobile device of the plurality of mobile devices.

2. The system of claim 1, the at least one permission is an alert permission that allows the alert to be conditioned upon the location information of the mobile device of the plurality of mobile devices.

3. The system of claim 1, the at least one permission is a locate permission that allows the user account to obtain location information for the mobile device of the plurality of mobile devices.

4. The system of claim 1, the at least one permission is limited as a function of time.

5. The system of claim 1, the at least one permission is limited as a function of a geographical area.

6. The system of claim 1, the at least one permission is initialized based at least in part upon a social network of a user of the user account.

7. The system of claim 1, the alert manager component governs a dependent user account.

8. The system of claim 7, the alert manager component governs grant of permissions by the dependent user account.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising a geographic data store that includes a set of user-defined, geographic locations associated with the user account and used in alert specification.

10. The system of claim 1, the account manager component maintains one or more categories of mobile device users and grant of access to location information for the user device is based at least in part upon the one or more categories of mobile device users.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising a landmark data store that manages a set of landmark locations that provide context with respect to location information.

12. The system of claim 1, further comprising a location prediction component that predicts a location of the user device, the alert is conditioned based at least in part upon the predicted location of the user device.

13. A computer-implemented method for providing location-based alerts to a user account, comprising:

obtaining alert information that specifies a condition for an alert;

validating the alert information based at least in part upon a set of authorizations, the set of authorizations regulates access to location information for a plurality of mobile devices; and

generating the alert in accordance with the alert information.

14. The method of claim 13, one or more authorizations of the set of authorizations are governed by an independent user account.

15. The method of claim 13, one or more authorizations of the set of authorizations are constrained based at least in part upon a temporal limitation.

16. The method of claim 13, one or more authorizations of the set of authorizations are constrained based upon a geographic limitation.

17. The method of claim 13, at least one of the set of authorizations is generated based upon a social network associated with the user account.

18. The method of claim 13, the set of authorizations includes an alert authorization that allows the alert to be conditioned based upon location information for one or more mobile devices of the plurality of mobile devices.

19. The method of claim 13, the set of authorizations includes a locate authorization that allows the user account to obtain location information for one or more mobile devices of the plurality of mobile devices.

20. A system for providing location-based alerts to a plurality of mobile device users, comprising:

means for managing a set of location-based alerts for a user account associated with a user device; and

means for managing a set of permissions associated with the user account, the set of permissions regulates access to location information for the user device and a subset of the set of permissions is governed by a second user account.