Finding friends near a friend

• US 9,119,029 B2
• Filed: 01/26/2014
• Issued: 08/25/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/26/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Bychkov, Eyal, Ron, Uri, Margalit, Ran
• Primary Examiner(s): Batista, Marcos
• Application Number:
  US14/164,207
• Publication Number:
  US 20140187271A1
• Time in Patent Office: 576 Days
• Field of Search: 455/404.2, 455/440, 455/456.1, 455/456.2, 370/338, 370/339
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• 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 4/185 by embedding added-value information into content, e.g. geo-tagging

Abstract

A system for finding friends near a friend, including a memory, housed within a mobile device, for storing a contact list including records for a plurality of friends, each record comprising a name of a friend and geographic coordinates of a location of the friend, and a locator for receiving as input the name of a designated friend in the contact list, and for generating as output a list of at least one proximal friend, each proximal friend including the name of a friend, other than the designated friend, whose location is located close to the designated friend'"'"'s location.

Claims

1. A system for finding friends near a friend, comprising:

a memory, housed within a mobile device, for storing a contact list comprising records for a plurality of a user'"'"'s friends, each record comprising a name of a friend of the user, and a location of the friend; and

a locator for receiving as input, from the user, the name of a designated friend of the user in the contact list, the designated friend of the user not being the user himself, and for generating as output a list of at least one proximal friend, each proximal friend comprising the name of a friend of the user also in the contact list, other than the designated friend, whose location is close to the designated friend'"'"'s location.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein said locator further generates, for at least one proximal friend, an estimate of distance between the designated friend and the proximal friend.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein said locator is housed within the mobile device.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein said locator is housed within a server computer remote from the mobile device.

5. The system of claim 1 further comprising an automatic dialer, housed within the mobile device, for dialing the phone number for a selected one of the at least one proximal friend.

6. The system of claim 1 further comprising a map finder for obtaining travel directions to reach a selected one of the at least one proximal friend.

7. A method for finding friends near a friend by a mobile device, comprising:

maintaining a contact list comprising records for a plurality of a user'"'"'s friends, each record including a name of a friend of the user, and a location of the friend;

receiving, from the user, the name of a designated friend of the user in the contact list, the designated friend not being the user himself; and

generating a list of at least one proximal friend, each proximal friend comprising the name of a friend of the user also in the contact list, other than the designated friend, whose location is close to the designated friend'"'"'s location.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein said generating comprises estimating a distance between the designated friend and at least one proximal friend.

9. The method of claim 7 further comprising automatically dialing the phone number for a selected one of the at least one proximal friend.

10. The method of claim 7 further comprising obtaining travel directions to reach a selected one of the at least one proximal friend.