House number normalization for master street address guide (MSAG) address matching

• US 20090092232A1
• Filed: 09/18/2008
• Published: 04/09/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/18/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TeleCommunication Systems Inc (Comtech Telecommunications Corporation)
• Original Assignee: TeleCommunication Systems Inc (Comtech Telecommunications Corporation)
• Inventors: MARTIN, Jeffrey Thomas, GELDENBOTT, Gerhard, BACKUS, Abe, HINES, Gordon John
• Granted Patent: US 9,413,889 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/45
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2242/04 for emergency applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2242/30 Determination of the location of a subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5116 for emergency applications
• 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 4/90 Services for handling of emergency or hazardous situations, e.g. earthquake and tsunami warning systems [ETWS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/50 for emergency connections

Abstract

A technique and apparatus to allow a determination of an MSAG-valid address by use of normalized house numbers included in address entries in an MSAG Address data store, to facilitate the simple match of an input civic/postal address against entries in a MSAG data store based on the use of a normalization of the house numbers. The house number normalization allows for an easy lexicographical determination as to whether or not the input civic/postal house number falls with the range of house numbers in the MSAG data store. The inventive process and apparatus pre-stores normalized house number fields in an MSAG address data store, and then normalizes house numbers in a civic/postal address associated with an emergency call. The normalized numbers in the input civic/postal address associated with the emergency call are then lexicographically matched with normalized entries in an MSAG address data store.

Claims

1. A master street address guide (MSAG) address data store, comprising:

a plurality of civic address entries, each entry comprising an address, a normalized low house number field, and a normalized high house number field.

2. The master street address guide (MSAG) address data store according to claim 1, wherein said normalized house number field comprises:

respective normalized MSAG house numbers normalized with non-alphanumeric characters represented with a space character, with consecutive space characters represented with a single space character, with leading and trailing spaces removed, and with each group of consecutive digits padding with leading characters such that each digits group is of a fixed common length.

3. A method of matching a civic/postal address associated with an emergency call with a master street address guide (MSAG) address table, comprising:

normalizing a house number of an input civic/postal address associated with an emergency call to comprise an alphanumeric string having a fixed number of characters;

providing said normalized house number for matching against entries in said master street address guide (MSAG); and

selecting a MSAG address from said MSAG address table in which said normalized house number falls lexicographically between a normalized low house number and a normalized high house number.

4. Apparatus for matching a civic/postal address associated with an emergency call with a master street address guide (MSAG) address table, comprising:

means for normalizing a house number of an input civic/postal address associated with an emergency call to comprise an alphanumeric string having a fixed number of characters;

means for providing said normalized house number for matching against entries in said master street address guide (MSAG); and

means for selecting a MSAG address from said MSAG address table in which said normalized house number falls lexicographically between a normalized low house number and a normalized high house number.

5. A process of normalizing a house number portion of a civic/postal address and MSAG address range for use with an address database, comprising:

converting each non-alphanumeric character in said house number portion to a space character;

replacing consecutive space characters in said house number portion with a single space character;

removing leading and trailing spaces in said house number portion; and

locating each group of consecutive digits, and padding each said group of consecutive digits with leading characters such that each digits group is of a fixed common length.

6. The process of normalizing a house number portion of a civic/postal address for use with an address database according to claim 5, wherein:

said fixed common length is 10 digits.

7. The process of normalizing a house number portion of a civic/postal address for use with an address database according to claim 5, wherein said leading characters comprise:

zeros.

8. The process of normalizing a house number portion of a civic/postal address for use with an address database according to claim 5, further comprising:

converting said house number to upper case.

9. The process of normalizing a house number portion of a civic/postal address for use with an address database according to claim 5, wherein:

said non-alphanumeric character is punctuation.