Method and apparatus for dynamically presenting content in response to user inputs

• US 9,405,844 B2
• Filed: 11/09/2015
• Issued: 08/02/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/03/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Life in Mobile Innovations, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Life in Mobile Innovations, Inc.
• Inventors: Lim, John W., Packes, John M. Jr.
• Primary Examiner(s): HESS, DANIEL A
• Application Number:
  US14/936,643
• Publication Number:
  US 20160063129A1
• Time in Patent Office: 267 Days
• Field of Search: 235/375, 455/414.1, 455/414.3
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9554 by using bar codes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9558 Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/06037 multi-dimensional coding
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10722 Photodetector array or CCD scanning
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0207 Discounts or incentives, e.g. coupons or rebates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• 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 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]

Abstract

QR codes or the like are used in hardlink applications, by which different users may receive different information in response to a scan of the same code that is displayed at one or more locations in the real world. The content delivered to a particular user in response to a hardlink code or a presented hyperlink may be dependent on the time of the scan, the geographic location of the user, a weather condition at the geographical location, personal information associated with the user, a number of previous scans of the code by prior individuals, and any combination of the these or other variables, which may be determined by an originator of the QR code or other party.

Claims

1. A method performed by a computer server system in communication with remote computing devices over a communication network, comprising:

establishing a web site on the communication network, storing, in an electronic memory, a plurality of separate merchant site addresses in a computer-readable format, the merchant site addresses comprising addresses on the communication network;

storing, in the electronic memory, at least one rule for selecting a merchant site address from the plurality of separate merchant site addresses, the at least one rule dependent on geographic locations, times at the geographic locations, and weather conditions at the geographic locations, which are determined in response to indications of inputs received from devices of users over the communication network;

receiving, at the web site from a device of a user, a selection of a code that has been presented to the user on the device;

in response to the selection determining a geographic location of the user, a time at the geographic location of the user, and a weather condition at the geographic location of the user;

selecting a merchant site address from the plurality of merchant site addresses based on the at least one rule, the geographic location of the user, the time at the geographic location of the user and the weather condition at the geographic location of the user; and

re-directing the device to the merchant site address on the data communication network.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the communications network comprises a wireless communications network and the device comprises a transmitter and a receiver for communicating over the wireless communications network.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the device comprises a global positioning system (GPS) for determining the geographic location of the user, and the device transmits the geographic location of the user with the selection.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the device comprises a camera, including at least one of a still camera and a video camera, for imaging the code, and further comprises software instructions for decoding the code after said imaging.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the selection includes information that was decoded by the device from a scan of the code by the camera.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the code comprises at least one of:

a one-dimensional barcode, a two-dimensional barcode, a quick response (QR) code, a dataform, a dataglyph, alphanumeric text, a photographic image and a symbology.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein the code is a photographic image, said receiving further comprising:

receiving the photographic image as the selection, identifying a location of the photographic image from at least one unique feature in the photographic image using image recognition software, and determining the geographic location of the user from the location.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the communications network comprises at least one of:

a data communications network, a computer network, a cellular telephone network, a cellular data network and a wireless network.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said at least one rule is dependent on additional data including a number of similar selections received from other users.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said selecting comprises selecting at least two merchant site addresses from the plurality of merchant site addresses, said re-directing comprises transmitting the at least two merchant site addresses to the computing device of the user;

and

receiving a selection of one of the at least two merchant site addresses from the computing device of the user.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the code comprises a Quick Response (QR) code and the selection received from the user includes information decoded from a scan of the QR code by the computing device of the user.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the selection comprises a transmission of an alphanumeric character string by Short Message Service (SMS) from the computing device to an SMS address that is visually displayed to the user at the geographic location.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the weather condition at the geographical location of the user is determined by referencing a weather site on the computer network.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the rule is further dependent on bids from a plurality of merchants for identifying particular merchant site addresses in response to receiving the indication from computing devices of users.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the code comprises a hyperlink presented with a plurality of search results in response to a web search performed on the device.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the code comprises a hyperlink presented in a message presented on a display of the user device.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the message comprises at least one of:

an electronic mail message and a cellular text message.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the code comprises a hyperlink presented on the device and the hyperlink is selected based on the geographic location of the user, the time at the geographic location of the user and the weather condition at the geographic location of the user.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the hyperlink is presented on the search device in response to a search request transmitted from the device.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the device is a smartphone.