Methods, systems, and apparatus for a geo-fence system

• US 9,307,359 B2
• Filed: 12/05/2013
• Issued: 04/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/05/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Cheung, Dennis
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, David Q
• Application Number:
  US14/098,111
• Publication Number:
  US 20150163629A1
• Time in Patent Office: 852 Days
• Field of Search: 455/456.1, 707/609, 342/450, 705/16, 705/26.1
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0205 Location or geographical consideration
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/022 with dynamic range variability
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 80/15 On-site combined power, heat or cool generation or distribution, e.g. combined heat and power [CHP] supply

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus for defining, generating, utilizing, and/or detecting a geo-fence are described. A trigger is obtained, the trigger generated in response to a change in a geo-fence criteria. One or more boundaries of the geo-fence based on the geo-fence criteria are defined in response to obtaining the trigger.

Claims

1. An apparatus for generating a geo-fence, the apparatus comprising:

a processor; and

memory to store instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to;

obtain a definition of the geo-fence, the geo-fence being defined based on a first geo-fence criterion of a plurality of geo-fence criteria;

obtain a trigger, the trigger generated in response to a change in the first geo-fence criterion; and

redefine one or more boundaries of the geo-fence based on the changed first geo-fence criterion in response to obtaining the trigger, wherein one or more of the one or more geo-fence boundaries are modified at a geo-fence device that detects one or more of the one or more geo-fence boundaries and wherein one or more of the one or more geo-fence boundaries are modified due to a count of applications executing on the geo-fence device and monitoring for a geo-fence.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, the redefining modifies one or more existing geo-fence boundaries.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, the trigger is one or more of:

a density of electronic commerce listings being within a defined density range;

a density of geo-fences being within a defined density range;

a reception of new demographic information;

a reception of revised user characteristics; and

a defined time-of-day alarm.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, the geo-fence criteria is one or more of:

a human population;

a density of human population;

a density of establishments;

a count of establishments;

a density of electronic commerce listings;

a count of electronic commerce listings;

an item value;

a popularity of an item based on a number of online searches for the item;

a popularity of an item based on a number of online views of an item;

a popularity of an item based on a number of sales of the item;

one or more item characteristics;

demographics of human population;

a travel time;

one or more characteristics of a user;

an itinerary of a user; and

a time of day.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, one or more of the one or more geo-fence boundaries are modified based on an amount of storage on the geo-fence device.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, a shape of the geo-fence is a circle and a radius of the circle is based on the first geo-fence criterion.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, a shape of the geo-fence is based on demographic information.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, the geo-fence is activated at a start of a specified period of time and is deactivated at an end of the specified period of time.

9. A method for generating a geo-fence, the method comprising:

obtaining a definition of the geo-fence, the geo-fence being defined based on a first geo-fence criterion of a plurality of geo-fence criteria;

obtaining a trigger, the trigger generated in response to a change in the first geo-fence criterion; and

redefining one or more boundaries of the geo-fence based on the changed first geo-fence criterion in response to obtaining the trigger, wherein one or more of the one or more geo-fence boundaries are modified at a geo-fence device that detects one or more of the one or more geo-fence boundaries and wherein one or more of the one or more geo-fence boundaries are modified due to a count of applications executing on the geo-fence device and monitoring for a geo-fence.

10. The method of claim 9, the redefining modifies one or more existing geo-fence boundaries.

11. The method of claim 9, the trigger is one or more of:

a density of electronic commerce listings being within a defined density range;

a density of geo-fences being within a defined density range;

a reception of new demographic information;

a reception of revised user characteristics; and

a defined time-of-day alarm.

12. The method of claim 9, one or more of the one or more geo-fence boundaries are modified based on an amount of storage on the geo-fence device.

13. The method of claim 9, a shape of the geo-fence is based on demographic information.

14. The method of claim 9, the geo-fence is activated at a start of a specified period of time and is deactivated at an end of the specified period of time.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform operations comprising:

obtaining a definition of the geo-fence, the geo-fence being defined based on a first geo-fence criterion of a plurality of geo-fence criteria;

obtaining a trigger, the trigger generated in response to a change in the first geo-fence criterion; and

redefining one or more boundaries of the geo-fence based on the changed first geo-fence criterion in response to obtaining the trigger, wherein one or more of the one or more geo-fence boundaries are modified at a geo-fence device that detects one or more of the one or more geo-fence boundaries and wherein one or more of the one or more geo-fence boundaries are modified due to a count of applications executing on the geo-fence device and monitoring for a geo-fence.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, the redefining modifies one or more existing geo-fence boundaries.