METHOD THAT ENABLES DEVICES NEAR EACH OTHER TO AUTOMATICALLY EXCHANGE OWNER PROFILE INFORMATION

• US 20140057550A1
• Filed: 08/19/2013
• Published: 02/27/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/22/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Anand Bernard Alen
• Original Assignee: Anand Bernard Alen
• Inventors: ALEN, ANAND BERNARD
• Granted Patent: US 9,049,565 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/3.06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/06 Selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS]; Services to user groups; One-way selective calling services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications

Abstract

A method for devices that are near each other to exchange owner profile information. Owner profile information may contain name, occupation, interests, who they would like to meet, contact information, photo and other information normally associated with an online profile. Owner profile information is either configured on the device or the device retrieves owner profile information from known social networking or profile management online databases. Once the device enters an area where a communication method is available to reach nearby devices, the device exchanges owner profile information with other participating devices. The idea includes a method that generates a unique key that identifies both a device and the owner profile state. Upon entering an area where inter-device communication with nearby devices is possible, this key is exchanged among all participating devices in the area and subsequently owner profile information is synchronized between devices. The owner profile or sufficient parameters to access owner profile from an online source is stored on the device along with information of the location where the profile and so the owner was encountered. All devices also maintain a count of how often a specific owner profile and so its owner was encountered.

Claims

1. A method by which a device communicates its user'"'"'s profile to other devices in an exchange area, the method comprising the steps of:

defining the user profile on the device with parameters comprising

a user name,

any occupation of the user,

any of the user'"'"'s interests,

any services provided by the user,

description of people user would like to meet,

a brief introduction of the user,

any contact information of the user,

any references to Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) of profiles of the user resident outside the device,

a photo of the user;

the said device, upon entry into the exchange area broadcasting repeatedly, each broadcast separated from the next by a period of time, a profile-id that is an identifier for the user of the device and the user profile;

the other devices in the exchange area receiving the profile-id broadcast from the said device;

the other devices in the exchange area, upon receipt of the profile-id broadcast, requesting user profile from said device if not already requested;

said device communicating user profile to the other devices in the exchange area that request user profile from said device;

the other devices in the exchange area receiving and storing user profile of said device.

2. The method in claim 1 further comprising where the other devices upon receipt of the first profile-id broadcast for a user, storing the location of the exchange area along with the stored user profile for the user;

thereby enabling automatic segregation of encountered users by location.

3. The method in claim 1 further comprising where the other devices upon receipt of the first profile-id broadcast for a user, incrementing a user encounter counter that tracks how often the user is encountered and storing said counter with the stored user profile;

thereby establishing friendship ranks among encountered users by treating users encountered more often as more friendly.

4. The method in claim 1 where the profile-id broadcast is accomplished by the use of Internet Protocol broadcast over a Wi-Fi network deployed in the exchange area.

5. The method in claim 1 where the profile-id broadcast is accomplished by the use of Internet Protocol multicast to a specific multicast IP address and port number over a Wi-Fi network deployed in the exchange area.

6. The method in claim 1 where the profile-id broadcast is accomplished by the said device publishing the profile-id along with the user profile and the location of the exchange area thereby associating the profile-id with the location of the exchange area, onto a relay agent on the Internet, followed by:

the other devices in the exchange area periodically querying the relay agent by providing the location of the exchange area for all profile-ids associated with the provided location;

and as a result of the query, the other devices upon finding such profile-ids associated with the location of the exchange area, retrieving the user profile for each returned profile-id from said relay agent provided they have not retrieved user profile for a given profile-id already.

7. The method in claim 6 where the location of the exchange area as supplied to the relay agent is a place name.

8. The method in claim 6 where the location of the exchange area as supplied to the relay agent is a place address.

9. The method in claim 6 where the location of the exchange area as supplied to the relay agent is defined by a latitude and longitude, the said latitude and longitude being the geographic location of the device that communicates with the relay agent;

and

in responding to a query for profile-ids associated with a provided location the relay agent declares all profile-ids supplied with a location in the profile-id broadcast where such location is within a preset and fixed distance of the provided location as profile-ids associated with the provided location.

10. The method in claim 6 where the location of the exchange area as supplied to the relay agent by a device is the BSSID of the Wi-Fi network.

11. The method in claim 6 where the location of the exchange area as supplied to the relay agent by a device is as a collection of Wi-Fi network SSIDs visible to the device;

and

in responding to a query for profile-ids associated with a provided location, the relay agent declares all devices that supplied in their profile-id broadcasts at least a preset number of the same SSIDs as profile-ids associated with the provided location.

12. The method in claim 11 where the devices include an SSID in the collection only if the Wi-Fi signal strength for that SSID is above a preset threshold.

13. The method in claim 6 where the Internet is replaced by a private network.

14. The method in claim 2 where the location of exchange area stored along with the received user profile is a place name.

15. The method in claim 2 where the location of exchange area stored along with the received user profile is a place address.

16. The method in claim 2 where the location of exchange area stored along with the received user profile is the BSSID of the Wi-Fi network deployed in the exchange area.

17. The method in claim 2 where the location of exchange area stored along with the received user profile is the SSID of the Wi-Fi network deployed in the exchange area.