WiFi and GSM landmarks and neighborhoods for location based services

• US 8,073,467 B2
• Filed: 09/25/2008
• Issued: 12/06/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/25/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gupta, Mohit, Mohan, Prashanth, Sivalingam, Lenin Ravindranath, Kumar, Santhosh
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Ajit
• Application Number:
  US12/238,361
• Publication Number:
  US 20100075697A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,167 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 455/456.3
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

A system for capturing and delivering location-based information and services captures wireless landmark information sent by mobile devices to build a map of locations based on the relationship between wireless landmarks that are visible to the mobile device at the same time. A wireless landmark may be a cellular telephone base site or local network (WiFi/Bluetooth) access point. The mobile device may capture a location signature using identifiers for all wireless local area networks in range as well as one or more cellular telephone transmitters. A location service resolves the location signature into a relative location that an application service may use to record incoming information or to send location-specific information such as traveler comments, reviews, or advertisements. The distance between two mobile devices may be calculated using weighted edge values, representing a number of ‘hops’ between location signatures.

Claims

1. A method of delivering location-based information to a mobile device, comprising:

collecting visible cellular telephone base site information at the mobile device;

collecting visible local wireless site information at the mobile device;

formatting the cellular telephone and local wireless information into a location signature;

sending the location signature from the mobile device to an information service; and

receiving location-based application data corresponding to the location signature.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving location-based application data comprises receiving data related to a nearby physical location.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving location-based application data comprises receiving data related to a nearby person or persons.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the location-based application data corresponds to a desired acquaintance.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the location-based application data corresponds to an undesired acquaintance.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

setting a preference corresponding to notifications of a nearby previously identified person or persons.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

receiving a notice indicating presence of a previously identified person or persons when a corresponding preference is set;

sending a message to a second party via the information service.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving location-based application data comprises receiving an advertisement related to a nearby physical location.

9. A system supporting location-based application data delivery to a mobile device, the system comprising:

a mobile device including;

wireless hardware that collects visible wireless system identification information for at least two network types;

a processing capability that forms a location signature from the wireless system identification information for the at least two network types;

a transceiver for sending a current location signature; and

a user interface for delivering location-oriented information;

a location service that maps location signature information and matches the current location signature to a location; and

an application service that uses the location to deliver location-oriented information to the mobile device.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the location service comprises a module for calculating a logical distance between two mobile devices.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the location service assigns a first value to a local network-to-local network edge, assigns a second value to a local network-to-cellular network edge, and assigns a third value to a cellular network-to-cellular network edge when calculating the logical distance between two mobile devices, the second value numerically between the first and third values.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the application service includes a social network friend application.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the application service includes a location-based web log (blog).

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the application service includes an advertising delivery service.

15. A method of operating a location service comprising:

receiving location signatures generated by a plurality of mobile devices, each location signature including wireless landmark information for at least one cellular telephone site and at least one local network site;

assigning an edge value to a pair of wireless landmarks received in the same location signature;

generating a map of wireless landmarks using landmark pairs received in the same location signature and using edge values to determine logical distances between cellular telephone sites and location network sites;

receiving a first location signature from a mobile device;

returning a map location including logical distances from a plurality of wireless landmarks for use in accessing location-related information.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the location-related information is location-specific information about a fixed geographic feature.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the location-related information corresponds to nearby people.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the location-related information corresponds to a desired person.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the location-related information corresponds to an undesired person.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein assigning an edge value to a pair of wireless landmarks received in the same location signature comprises:

assigning a value of 1 to a local network to local network edge;

assigning a value of 5 to a local network to cellular telephone site edge; and

assigning a value of 10 to a cellular telephone site to cellular telephone site edge.