INFERRING ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE THROUGH NEAR FIELD COMMUNICATION AND DATA MINING

• US 20090192872A1
• Filed: 01/30/2008
• Published: 07/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Original Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Inventors: Larsson, Tony, Moritz, Simon, Svensson, Martin
• Granted Patent: US 8,266,027 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/35
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

A method, performed by a mobile device, may include receiving transponder information relating to a consumer product, and verifying whether user consent exists to forward the transponder information to a network device for data mining processing. The method may further include transmitting the transponder information to the network device, when user consent exists.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, by a mobile device, transponder information relating to a consumer product;

verifying, by the mobile device, whether user consent exists to forward the transponder information to an operator'"'"'s network device for data mining processing; and

transmitting, by the mobile device, the transponder information to the operator'"'"'s network device when user consent exists.

2. The method of claim 1, where the receiving comprises:

providing, by the mobile device, a timestamp indicating when the transponder information was received.

3. The method of claim 1, where the verifying comprises:

receiving, by the mobile device, an input from a user indicating the user consent, where the user consent includes at least one of a tag identification parameter, a location identifier parameter, or a user identifier parameter.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

determining, by the mobile device, whether there is location information corresponding to a user location, if the user consent exists for the location identifier parameter; and

transmitting, by the mobile device, the location information to the network device if the location information exists.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

determining, by the mobile device, whether the transponder information includes an electronic product code (EPC) that was already sent to the network device; and

filtering, by the mobile device, the EPC code by omitting to transmit the EPC code to the network device.

6. A method comprising:

receiving near field communication information from a mobile device;

generating environmental data that includes surroundings of a user based on the near field communication information;

generating, by a data mining engine, predictive data based on the environmental data; and

providing a service to the user based on the predictive data.

7. The method of claim 6, where the receiving comprises:

receiving at least one of user information or location information.

8. The method of claim 6, where the predictive data includes demographic data, and the providing comprises:

transmitting to the user marketing information that relates to a product associated with the near field communication information in the surroundings.

9. A mobile device comprising:

a memory to store instructions; and

a processor to execute the instructions to;

receive one or more product identifiers from one or more near field communication transponders;

provide a timestamp for each of the one or more product identifiers;

determine whether user consent exists for transmitting the one or more product identifiers to a network; and

transmit the one or more product identifiers for data mining purposes to the network if user consent exists.

10. The mobile device of claim 9, where the processor further executes instructions to:

obtain location information corresponding to a location of the mobile device.

11. The mobile device of claim 9, where the processor further executes instructions to:

determine whether at least one of the one or more product identifiers was previously transmitted to the network.

12. The mobile device of claim 9, where the processor further executes instructions to:

store one of the one or more product identifiers, where the one of the one or more product identifiers corresponds to a product owned by the user; and

alert the user if the one of the one or more product identifiers is located beyond a certain distance from the mobile device.

13. The mobile device of claim 9, where the processor further executes instructions to:

obtain product type information corresponding to the one or more product identifiers.

14. The mobile device of claim 9, where the processor further executes instructions to:

provide a user identifier to the network for data mining purposes.

15. The mobile device of claim 9, where the processor further executes instructions to:

determine whether the one or more product identifiers meets a threshold value, where the threshold value equates to a number of product identifiers that allow the network to generate environmental data based on the one or more product identifiers.

16. The mobile device of claim 9, where the one or more product identifiers correspond to one or more radio frequency identification tags.

17. A computer-readable medium containing instructions executable by a data mining engine within a network, the computer-readable medium comprising:

one or more instructions for receiving environmental data based on a distance setting that includes at least one of a product near a user or a product more distant from the user, the environmental data being based on product identifier information collected from a user terminal; and

one or more instructions for generating inferred knowledge based on the environmental data.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, further comprising:

one or more instructions for associating the inferred knowledge with a user profile.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, further comprising:

one or more instructions for associating the inferred knowledge with a location profile, where the location profile includes location information corresponding to the locale of the user and the user terminal.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, where the inferred knowledge includes recommendation data, where the recommendation data includes a selection of a product that the user is interested in.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, further comprising:

one or more instructions for generating inferred knowledge based on demographic data associated with one or more users of the network.

22. A service provider network, comprising:

a data mining engine to generate predictive data based on context data collected from a subscriber via a mobile terminal associated with the subscriber, where the context data includes tag information associated with products in a locale of the subscriber; and

a transceiver to provide recommendation data to the subscriber based on the predictive data.

23. The service provider network of claim 22, where the recommendation data includes product information.

24. The service provider network of claim 22, where the recommendation data includes selection of a product by subscribers other than the subscriber.

25. The service provider network of claim 22, where the recommendation data includes at least one of product information, advertisements, or coupons.