REGULATORY COMPLIANCE FOR WIRELESS DEVICES

• US 20150071268A1
• Filed: 09/09/2013
• Published: 03/12/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Blackberry USA (Blackberry Limited)
• Inventors: Kennedy, Richard Howard, McCann, Stephen, Montemurro, Michael Peter, Winter Lepp, James Randolph
• Granted Patent: US 9,654,965 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/338
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24569 Query processing with adaptation to specific hardware, e.g. adapted for using GPUs or SSDs
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/50 Service provisioning or reconfiguring
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/20 Selecting an access point
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/003 locating network equipment
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/08 Mobility data transfer
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/20 Transfer of user or subscriber data
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/08 Access point devices

Abstract

A wireless device may be subject to regulations based on the location (e.g. country). Accordingly, the wireless device may need to identify regulations for its current location. A lookup table or database that includes regulations for different locations may be used for identifying the regulations for the current location of the wireless device. The lookup table may be stored locally on the wireless device or retrieved over a network. The identified regulations may be used to modify certain operating parameters of the wireless device to comply with the local regulations and determine whether or not to associate with an incorrectly configured Access Point.

Claims

1. A method in a mobile device, the method comprising:

identifying a location of the mobile device;

accessing a lookup table based on the location of the mobile device, the lookup table including regulatory information; and

identifying, from the lookup table, regulatory information associated with the location of the mobile device.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the lookup table is stored locally at the mobile device.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the lookup table is downloaded from a server to the mobile device and stored locally at the mobile device.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifying a location comprises receiving information identifying the location from a server.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the lookup table is not stored locally at the mobile device but is accessed over a network from a server.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

modifying operating parameters for the mobile device based on the identified regulations.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the operating parameters comprise a band, a channel, power, or transmit mask.

8. The method of claim 6 wherein the mobile device comprises a wireless local area network (“

WLAN”

) device and the operating parameters comprise Wi-Fi regulations.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifying a location comprises determining the location based on at least one of satellite location technology, mobile country code, access point country codes, indirect access point location, or cellular location technology.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining whether an access point complies with the identified regulations;

refusing to connect with the access point when the access point fails to comply with the identified regulations; and

connecting with the access point when the access point complies with the identified regulations.

11. A wireless device, the device comprising:

a processor configured to;

determine a location of the wireless device;

access a lookup table that includes regulations for different locations; and

identify regulations for the location of the wireless device from the lookup table.

12. The wireless device of claim 11 wherein the lookup table is downloaded from a server to the wireless device and stored locally.

13. The wireless device of claim 11 wherein the lookup table is accessed over a network from a server.

14. The wireless device of claim 11 wherein the processor is further configured to:

determine whether one or more access points comply with the identified regulations; and

refusing to connect with the one or more access points that fail to comply with the identified regulations.

15. The wireless device of claim 11 wherein the regulations comprise operating parameters for the wireless device that are modified based on the identified regulations.

16. The wireless device of claim 15 wherein the operating parameters comprise a band, a channel, power, or transmit mask.

17. The wireless device of claim 15 the wireless device comprises a wireless local area network (“

WLAN”

) device and the operating parameters comprise Wi-Fi regulations.

18. The wireless device of claim 11 wherein the location is determined based on at least one of satellite location technology, mobile country code, access point country codes, indirect access point location, or cellular location technology.

19. A wireless local area network (“

WLAN”

) device, the device comprising;

a processor configured to;

retrieve a lookup table stored with the WLAN device, wherein the lookup table includes regulations for different locations;

identify regulations from the lookup table based on a location of the WLAN device; and

refuse to connect with an access point that does not comply with the identified regulations.

20. The wireless device of claim 19 wherein the processor is further configured to:

modify operation of the WLAN device to conform to the identified regulations.