Vehicle location navigation system

• US 8,868,289 B2
• Filed: 04/12/2013
• Issued: 10/21/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/13/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Automatic Labs Incorporated (Liberty Media Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Automatic Labs Incorporated (Liberty Media Corporation)
• Inventors: Miljkovic, Ljubinko, Palmer, David Theron, Jayaraman, Ramprabhu
• Primary Examiner(s): Zanelli, Michael J
• Application Number:
  US13/861,809
• Publication Number:
  US 20130274953A1
• Time in Patent Office: 557 Days
• US Class Current: 701/32.3
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 25/102 a signal being sent to a remote location, e.g. a radio signal being transmitted to a police station, a security company or the owner
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3896 Transmission of map data from central databases
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/205 Indicating the location of the monitored vehicles as destination, e.g. accidents, stolen, rental

Abstract

An apparatus includes a connector to an on board diagnostic (OBD) port of a vehicle, wireless communications circuitry, a processor and a memory, the memory storing instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to monitor the ignition state of the vehicle, and upon detecting an ignition off state, reporting at least the off state to a network-enabled communications appliance wirelessly paired for wireless communication with the apparatus.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

monitoring the ignition state of a vehicle via an apparatus having a processor and a memory, a connector to an on board diagnostic (OBD) port of a vehicle, and wireless communications circuitry;

upon detecting an ignition off state, reporting at least the state to a network-enabled communications appliance paired for wireless communication with the apparatus;

from the wireless communications appliance, uploading the ignition state, time, date, and location information to a network-connected server;

at the server, validating and storing the state including associated information; and

upon a request received at the server from at least one authorized user, processing the information including vehicle location information and serving it to the at least one authorized user.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the wireless communications circuitry is Bluetooth™

circuitry.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the information includes global positioning satellite (GPS) data indicating the last location of the vehicle upon detecting the ignition off state.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the GPS data is accessed by the vehicle or the apparatus using a GPS device.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the GPS data is accessed by the wireless communications appliance using a GPS device.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the server is a location-mapping server.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the server serves a digital map marking the location of the vehicle and the location of the requestor.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the server serves navigation instructions from the requestor location to the vehicle location.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the navigation instructions include voice prompts.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein more than one user is authorized to request and receive the processed vehicle location and associated information and services.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the authorized user shares a link to the server with other users over a social network or messaging media and provides authentication information to enable those users to request and receive location information relative to the vehicle.