Selective communication of targeted information

• US 7,890,576 B2
• Filed: 11/13/2006
• Issued: 02/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/13/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Hamilton, James Robert, Button, Thomas L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Bates; Kevin
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, MINH CHAU
• Application Number:
  US11/598,478
• Publication Number:
  US 20080114829A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,555 Days
• Field of Search: 709217-219
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10015 Access to distributed or replicated servers, e.g. using brokers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

Described is a technology by which by which information (an electronic note from a producer) that is available for delivery to a client consumer is only selectively delivered. The selective delivery may be based on metadata associated with the information, client identity data and other criteria, including a location of a client device. The information to selectively deliver may be obtained from an external information source, or generated by a service, such as when the user is near a location of interest. The client may report location changes, such as a rate corresponding to a rate of location change of the client. An information service scale to any practical number of clients via client state servers and location (of interest) servers, with each client state server associated with a set of one or more clients, and each location server associated with a set of one or more regions.

Claims

1. In a networked communications environment, a system comprising:

at least one server comprising a service that tracks location and other state of client consumers, the at least one server comprising at least one physical machine;

a selection mechanism associated with the service, the selection mechanism configured to evaluate client-associated state data against metadata of a note generated by a note producer to determine whether to deliver the note to a given client consumer, the metadata comprising a priority level, wherein the selection mechanism evaluates the metadata against client-associated state data of the given client including a logical location based upon at least one of an historical location prediction or a statistical location prediction, wherein the selection mechanism evaluates the metadata against client location data, time and client context data, the client context data comprising user-specified state information associated a priority level of notes to be delivered to the client, wherein the service includes a plurality of location servers, each location server associated with a set of one or more location regions based on means for partitioning a full set of served location regions into subsets of location regions, and means for assigning one or more location regions to each location server such that locations of interest are associated with location state servers.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the selection mechanism determines whether to deliver the note to the given client consumer based on client identity data of that given client, the client identity data including a user identifier or a device identifier, or a combination of a user identifier and a device identifier.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the service includes a plurality of client state servers, each client state server associated with a set of one or more clients based on means for partitioning a full set of clients into subsets of client partitions, and means for assigning one or more client partitions to each client state server such that each client is associated with at least one client state server.

4. The system of claim 1 further comprising a partition manager that moves one or more client partitions between client state servers according to server loads.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the service receives client state data from the given client consumer via the Internet and delivers the note to the client via an instant messaging system.