Method and apparatus for acquiring, processing, using and brokering location information associated with mobile communication devices
First Claim
1. A method comprising:
- using a processing system to acquire location related information associated with a plurality of mobile devices that operate on a wireless network;
processing the location related information associated with the plurality of mobile devices in the processing system to produce processed location related information, wherein said processing the location related information comprises aggregating the location related information corresponding to at least two of the mobile devices, generating a set of vectors representing movement of the at least two users based on the aggregated information, each of the vectors representing a trend of movement of the at least two users of the mobile devices, and generating a measure of population density corresponding to each vector of the set of vectors;
transmitting the processed location related information to a recipient as part of a business transaction, wherein said transmitting comprises transmitting data representing the set of vectors to the recipient, and transmitting to the recipient data representing the measure of population density for each vector; and
receiving payment in exchange for said transmitting as part of the business transaction.
4 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An information broker operates a location server coupled to a wireless network and a wireline network, which acquires and processes information indicating locations of mobile communication devices on the wireless network. The information broker provides the processed information to one or more recipients. The processed information may be provided by the information broker to a recipient in exchange for payment, as part of a business transaction. The raw or processed location related information may include a history of locations of a mobile communication device and times and durations associated with the locations. The processed information may include graphs or maps of geographic areas in which the mobile devices have been located, movement trends, or other behavioral patterns of mobile users. The processed location data can also be used in performing location-based searches and other location-related applications and for customer analysis, among other uses.
-
Citations
42 Claims
-
1. A method comprising:
-
using a processing system to acquire location related information associated with a plurality of mobile devices that operate on a wireless network; processing the location related information associated with the plurality of mobile devices in the processing system to produce processed location related information, wherein said processing the location related information comprises aggregating the location related information corresponding to at least two of the mobile devices, generating a set of vectors representing movement of the at least two users based on the aggregated information, each of the vectors representing a trend of movement of the at least two users of the mobile devices, and generating a measure of population density corresponding to each vector of the set of vectors; transmitting the processed location related information to a recipient as part of a business transaction, wherein said transmitting comprises transmitting data representing the set of vectors to the recipient, and transmitting to the recipient data representing the measure of population density for each vector; and receiving payment in exchange for said transmitting as part of the business transaction. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
-
-
14. A computer-implemented method comprising:
-
acquiring aggregated location related information indicative of a plurality of locations of a plurality of mobile devices on a wireless network; defining a plurality of regions based on the aggregated location related information, each region associated with a subset of the aggregated location related information, each region representing a geographic area in which at least two of the mobile devices have been located; storing in a storage device data identifying each of the regions in association with the corresponding subset of the location related information; and generating a map based on the aggregated location related information wherein the map represents a demographic characteristic of users of said at least some of the devices comprising a population density of users of said at least some of the devices. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
-
-
30. A computer-implemented method comprising:
-
acquiring location information indicative of locations of a plurality of mobile devices that operate on a wireless network; aggregating the location related information associated with two or more of the mobile devices; generating a map based on the aggregated information, wherein the map represents a demographic characteristic of users of the at least some of the devices comprising a population density of users of the at least some of the devices; and transmitting information representing the map to a recipient as part of a business transaction; and receiving payment in exchange for the transmitting information representing the map as part of the business transaction. - View Dependent Claims (31, 32, 33)
-
-
34. A computer-implemented method comprising:
-
acquiring location information indicative of locations of a plurality of mobile devices that operate on a wireless network; aggregating the location information; and generating a set of vectors representing an overall trend of movement of at least two users of the mobile devices based on the aggregated location information, wherein each of the vectors represents an overall trend of movement of a plurality of users of the mobile devices, and wherein said acquiring and said aggregating the location information further comprises generating a measure of population density corresponding to each vector of the set of vectors. - View Dependent Claims (35)
-
-
36. A method comprising:
-
aggregating the location related information associated with a plurality of mobile devices that operates on a wireless network; maintaining a metric associated with a place and an entity; detecting at least one of the mobile devices being in proximity to the place, based on the location related information associated with the at least one of the mobile devices and data indicating a location of the place; updating the metric in response to detecting a predetermined number of instances of the at least one of the mobile devices being in proximity to the place; awarding a value to the entity based on the metric; and generating a map based on the aggregated location related information wherein the map represents a demographic characteristic of users of said at least some of the devices comprising a population density of users of said at least some of the devices. - View Dependent Claims (37, 38, 39, 40, 41)
-
-
42. A system comprising:
-
means for acquiring location related information associated with a plurality of mobile devices that operate on a wireless network; means for processing the location related information associated with the plurality of mobile devices to produce processed location related information, wherein said processing the location related information comprises aggregating the location related information corresponding to at least two of the mobile devices, generating a set of vectors representing movement of the at least two users based on the aggregated information, each of the vectors representing a trend of movement of the at least two users of the mobile devices, and generating a measure of population density corresponding to each vector of the set of vectors; and means for transmitting the processed location related information to a recipient as part of a business transaction, wherein said transmitting comprises transmitting data representing the set of vectors to the recipient, and transmitting to the recipient data representing the measure of population density for each vector.
-
Specification