Geofence Information Delivery Systems and Methods

• US 20160359986A1
• Filed: 06/22/2015
• Published: 12/08/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/02/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: GeoFrenzy, Inc
• Original Assignee: GeoFrenzy, Inc
• Inventors: Jones, Benjamin T.
• Granted Patent: US 9,906,609 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B64C 39/024 of the remote controlled vehicle type, i.e. RPV
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/604 Tools and structures for managing or administering access control systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2111 Location-sensitive, e.g. geographical location, GPS
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/006 in accordance with predefined flight zones, e.g. to avoid prohibited zones
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0069 specially adapted for an unmanned aircraft
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2816 Controlling appliance services of a home automation network by calling their functionalities arrangements in telecontrol or telemetry systems for selectively calling a substation from a main station; in which substation desired apparatus is selected for applying a control signal thereto or for obtaining measured values therefrom H04Q9/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/6418 Hybrid transport
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/659 Internet protocol version 6 [IPv6] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/69 using geographic information, e.g. room number
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5007 Internet protocol [IP] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/563 Data redirection of data network streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/08 Access security
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences

Abstract

The present invention is directed to methods and systems for querying a database of geofences, with each geofence in the database being associated with a plurality of geographic designators, wherein each of the plurality of geographic designators is associated with an IP address, preferably an IPv6 address.

Claims

1. A method for delivering geofence information by one or more processors, comprising the steps of:

generating at a device a first request comprising a coordinate point of a geographic location associated with the device;

converting the coordinate point to an Internet Protocol (IP) address and generating an anchor point corresponding to the IP address;

identifying one or more geofences associated with the coordinate point; and

creating a first response to the first request wherein the first response comprises information describing the one or more identified geofences.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the IP address is an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) address.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating at the device a second request; and

creating a second response to the second request wherein the second response comprises information describing the one or more identified geofences.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the first request is a Domain Name System (DNS) query and wherein the first response is a DNS response.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of converting the coordinate point to the IP address comprises querying a geofence database with data stored thereon for IP addresses, anchor points for geofences, and coordinate points for geographic locations.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of identifying one or more geofences comprises querying a geofence database, wherein the geofence database stores information describing each geofence.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the information describing the one or more identified geofences comprises at least one of an indication whether the one or more geofences is verified or unverified, a class of the one or more geofences, an entitlement of the one or more geofences, a time-to-live value, and a context summary of the one or more geofences.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first request, the step of converting the coordinate point to the IP address, the IP address, and/or the information describing the one or more identified geofences are displayed via a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the GUI comprises an interactive map showing the boundaries of the one or more identified geofences.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the interactive map is a 2-dimensional (2D) map.

11. A system of geofence delivery network, comprising:

at least one geofence database; and

at least one server;

wherein the at least one server comprises a conversion engine and a search engine;

wherein the conversion engine is configured to convert between a coordinate point of a geographic location and an IP address used for generating an anchor point for at least one geofence; and

wherein the search engine is configured to receive an inquiry via a network and query the at least one geofence database to identify one or more geofences associated with the anchor point.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the IP address is an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) address.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the at least one server and the at least one geofence database are centralized or decentralized.

14. The system of claim 11, further comprising a Graphical User Interface (GUI), wherein the GUI is configured to receive a request and display a response.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the request comprises an IP address;

and wherein the request is a Domain Name System (DNS) query.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the response comprises information describing the one or more identified geofences.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the information describing the one or more identified geofences comprises at least one of an indication whether the geofence is verified or unverified, a class of the one or more identified geofences, an entitlement of the one or more identified geofences, a time-to-live value, and a context summary of the one or more identified geofences.

18. The system of claim 14, wherein the GUI comprises an interactive map showing the boundaries of the one or more identified geofences.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the interactive map is a 2-dimensional (2D) map.

20. The system of claim 14, further comprising an application program communicating with the at least one server and the at least one geofence database via the network, wherein the application program is installed in at least one mobile computing device.

21. A method for delivering geofence information by one or more processors, comprising the steps of:

receiving and processing a first request from at least one device over a network comprising a coordinate point of a geographic location associated with the at least one device;

converting the coordinate point to an Internet Protocol (IP) address and generating an anchor point corresponding to the IP address, wherein the IP address is an IPv6 address;

identifying one or more geofences having corresponding anchor points associated with the coordinate point; and

creating a response to the first request wherein the response comprises information describing the one or more identified geofences.