Place specific buddy list services

• US 6,968,179 B1
• Filed: 07/27/2000
• Issued: 11/22/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: De Vries, Jean Pierre
• Primary Examiner(s): Vuong, Quochien B.
• Application Number:
  US09/626,170
• Time in Patent Office: 1,944 Days
• Field of Search: 455/414.1, 455/422.1, 455/456, 455/457, 455/459, 455/466, 455/456.1, 455/456.2, 455/456.3, 455/456.4, 455/456.6, 455/566, 340/993
• US Class Current: 455/414.1
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 2001/085 Partner search devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/58 Message adaptation for wireless communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/141 Setup of application sessions admission control or resource allocation in data switching networks H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/025 using location based information parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/08 Mobility data transfer
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/14 between corresponding nodes

Abstract

An information service provides search and notifications to inform when certain people (e.g., friends, family, business contacts, etc.) are nearby so as to facilitate communications with those people. Users may define lists of people whose locations may be tracked by positioning equipment based on personal communications/computing devices carried by the people. The information service processes this people and place data to identify those of the listed people that are in the user'"'"'s vicinity, and provide notifications and user-initiated search results informing the user such as via the user'"'"'s personal communications/computing device.

Claims

1. In a data communications network having a plurality of mobile personal information devices and at least one server computer, a method of providing a place-and-people based information service run on the at least one server computer to users operating the mobile personal information devices, comprising:

defining for a user of the information service a list of people;

receiving reports of locations of the mobile personal information devices operated by the user and by the listed people;

determining based on the reported locations which of the listed people are within a specified proximity of the user; and

transmitting information identifying which of the listed people are within the specified proximity of the user to the user'"'"'s mobile personal information device;

maintaining visibility parameters per each of the listed people; and

omitting to identify those of the listed people whose visibility parameter is set to not visible from the transmitted information.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising transmitting the information in response to a search request submitted by the user.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

detecting that the determination of which of the listed people are within a specified proximity of the user has changed as a result of any of the reports of locations; and

transmitting the information in response to the detecting.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the specified proximity is user controlled via setting a user-specified proximity parameter.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

user-controllably setting a notification enabling parameter to disable the transmitting the information to the user'"'"'s mobile personal information device.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

defining for the user a plurality of groups of the listed people;

designating for the user to receive the information of a subset of the groups; and

excluding those of the listed people not in the designated subset from identification in the transmitted information.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the specified proximity is a measure of distance from the user.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the specified proximity is a hierarchical proximity.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the specified proximity is a specified venue.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the listed people are people travelling to a common destination.

11. A place-specific buddy list service system operated on server computers of a distributed data communications network for access from personal data communications computers, the system comprising:

a database maintaining a people/place state for a user of the service, the people/place state enumerating at least one group of people also using the service and locations of such people;

a people location tracker operating responsive to reports of the location of the people to update the people/place state; and

an inference engine operating to process the people/place state to infer which of the people are in the user'"'"'s proximity, and to generate a notification for the user having information identifying the people inferred to be in the user'"'"'s proximity;

wherein the inference engine infers which people are in the user'"'"'s proximity and generates the notification in accordance with a set of parameters, including a visibility parameter associated with a person enumerated in the people/place state, the inference engine operating to exclude the person when the visibility parameter is set to a not visible value.

12. The system of claim 11 further comprising an eventing engine operating responsive to a change in the people/place state to cause the inference engine to process the inference and generate the notification.

13. The system of claim 11 further comprising a search engine operating responsive to a user-initiated search request to cause the inference engine to process the inference and to cause the notifier to generate the notification.

14. The system of claim 11, the set of parameters further including a proximity scope parameter to control a scope within which the people are considered to be in the user'"'"'s proximity.

15. The system of claim 11 wherein the inference engine further operates to infer resources other than the people are in the user'"'"'s proximity, and to include information of such other resources in the notification.

16. The system of claim 11, the inference engine responding to user selection of one of a plurality of user-defined modes specifying settings of the parameters to apply the parameter settings specified in the user-selected mode.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein at least one of the plurality of user-defined modes is selected by the system based on observation of user behavior.

18. The system of claim 11, the value of at least one of the parameters varying by place.

19. The system of claim 11, the value of at least one of the parameters varying by time.

20. A computer-readable medium having programming carried thereon of an information service providing notifications as to proximity of listed persons, the carried programming comprising:

program code operating responsive to user control to manage a listing of persons;

program code operating responsive to place-detecting equipment to track locations of the user and the listed persons;

program code operating to process the tracked locations and identify those of the listed persons whose locations correlate with that of the user in accordance with settings of a plurality of parameters;

program code operating to provide information of the identified persons to the user; and

program code operating responsive to setting of a visibility parameter for a person as not visible to exclude the person from the identification of those of the listed persons whose locations correlate with that of the user.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 20 wherein the carried programming further comprises:

program code operating to apply parameter settings specific to a place in which the user is located to the identification of those of the listed persons whose locations correlate with that of the user.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 20 wherein the carried programming further comprises:

program code operating to apply parameter settings specific to an activity in which the user is engaged to the identification of those of the listed persons whose locations correlate with that of the user.

23. The computer-readable medium of claim 20 wherein the carried programming further comprises:

program code operating to apply parameter settings specified per a time schedule to the identification of those of the listed persons whose locations correlate with that of the user.

24. The computer-readable medium of claim 20 wherein the carried programming further comprises:

program code operating responsive to user selection of a subset of the listed persons to limit the identification of those of the listed persons whose locations correlate with that of the user to the user-selected subset.

25. A place-specific buddy list service system operated on server computers of a distributed data communications network for access from personal data communications computers, the system comprising:

a database maintaining a people/place state for a user of the service, the people/place state enumerating at least one group of people also using the service and locations of such people;

a people location tracker operating responsive to reports of the location of the people to update the people/place state; and

an inference engine operating to process the people/place state to infer which of the people are in the user'"'"'s proximity, and to generate a notification for the user having information identifying the people inferred to be in the user'"'"'s proximity;

wherein the inference engine infers which people are in the user'"'"'s proximity and generates the notification in accordance with a set of parameters, the inference engine responding to user selection of one of a plurality of user-defined modes specifying settings of the parameters to apply the parameter settings specified in the user-selected mode; and

wherein the parameters comprise a visibility parameter controlling whether the user is to be included for purposes of generating notifications to other people using the system, a proximity scope parameter controlling a scope within which the people are considered to be in the user'"'"'s proximity, and people selection parameter designating a subset of the at least one group of people to include in the notification to the user.

26. A place-specific buddy list service system operated on server computers of a distributed data communications network for access from personal data communications computers, the system comprising:

a database maintaining a people/place state for a user of the service, the people/place state enumerating at least one group of people also using the service and locations of such people;

a people location tracker operating responsive to reports of the location of the people to update the people/place state; and

an inference engine operating to process the people/place state to infer which of the people are in the user'"'"'s proximity, and to generate a notification for the user having information identifying the people inferred to be in the user'"'"'s proximity;

wherein the inference engine infers which people are in the user'"'"'s proximity and generates the notification in accordance with a set of parameters, the inference engine responding to user selection of one of a plurality of user-defined modes specifying settings of the parameters to apply the parameter settings specified in the user-selected mode; and

wherein the parameters comprise visibility parameters controlling whether the user is to be included for purposes of generating notifications to other people using the system, and wherein different visibility parameters are associated with different user-defined modes.