Systems and methods for transmitting information, alerts, and/or comments to participants based on location information

• US 9,420,560 B2
• Filed: 02/16/2016
• Issued: 08/16/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 04/13/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Jingle Technologies, LLC
• Original Assignee: Jingle Technologies, LLC
• Inventors: Ross, David, Taylor, Charles
• Primary Examiner(s): JACOBS, LASHONDA T
• Application Number:
  US15/045,016
• Publication Number:
  US 20160165568A1
• Time in Patent Office: 182 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/40 Support for services or applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/022 with dynamic range variability
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/02 Terminal devices

Abstract

The present invention generally relates to systems and methods for sharing information related to a location also referred to herein as a “spot,” such as spot alerts and/or spot comments (e.g., shared information, advertisements, etc.) received, displayed, played, and/or actuated, for example, on recipient mobile electronic devices proximately located to such location (e.g., spot). Users of the system can create spot alerts in which designated recipients can receive messages, such as spot alerts and/or spot comments (e.g., shared information, advertisements, etc.) received, displayed, played, and/or actuated, for example, on respective recipient mobile electronic devices, when located within a proximity of a defined location (e.g., spot).

Claims

1. A method comprising:

determining, using one or more processors of a mobile electronic device, a location of the mobile electronic device, wherein a user of the mobile electronic device is within a network of users;

receiving, by one or more communications portals operatively connected to the one or more processors, spot alert data associated with one or more spot alerts, the spot alert data comprising geographical range information associated with each of the one or more spot alerts, the spot alert data being configured by one or more other users within the network of users;

determining, using the one or more processors, based on the geographical range information, whether the location of the mobile electronic device is within at least one geographical range associated with at least one of the spot alerts;

determining, using the one or more processors, whether the user of the mobile electronic device is within a restricted group of users within the network of users;

upon a condition that the location of the mobile electronic device is within the at least one geographical range associated with at least one of the spot alerts and the user of the mobile electronic device is within the restricted group of users, receiving, using the one or more communications portals, the at least one spot alert; and

executing, using the one or more processors, the at least one spot alert at the mobile electronic device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the mobile electronic device further comprises at least one of one or more speakers, one or more vibrators or one or more graphical user interfaces.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the at least one spot alert comprises an audio file, and the at least one spot alert is executed by the one or more speakers.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the at least one spot alert comprises a vibration, and the at least one spot alert is executed by the one or more vibrators.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the at least one spot alert comprises a text file, and the at least one spot alert is executed by the one or more graphical user interfaces.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the at least one spot alert comprises an image file, and the at least one spot alert is executed by the one or more graphical user interfaces.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the at least one spot alert comprises a video file, and the at least one spot alert is executed by the one or more graphical user interfaces.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more communications portals comprise at least one of a cellular antennae communications portal, a WiFi™

communications portal, a Bluetooth®

communications portal or a location communications portal.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining a location of the mobile electronic device is performed by at least one of (i) Global Positions Systems (GPS);

(ii) GPS accessed using Bluetooth®

;

(iii) WiFi™

server location data;

(iv) Bluetooth®

based location data;

(v) network based triangulation;

(vi) WiFi™

server information based triangulation;

(vii) Bluetooth®

server information based triangulation;

(viii) Cell Identification based triangulation, (ix) Enhanced Cell Identification based triangulation;

(x) Uplink-Time difference of arrival based triangulation;

(xi) Time of arrival based triangulation;

or (xii) Angle of arrival based triangulation.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of sending, using the one or more communications portals, a notification to at least one other user electronic device that the at least one spot alert was received by the mobile electronic device.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of sending, using the one or more communications portals, a report to at least one other user electronic device comprising information regarding receipt of the at least one spot alert by the mobile electronic device during a period of time.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the report further comprises at least one of mobile electronic device information, spot approved recipient information, mobile electronic device location information, spot location information, spot range information, at least one spot comment, and spot comment information.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the report further comprises at least some information associated with at least one of a physiographic data;

at least one of the perspective and impression of at least one of the user for any location;

demographics;

mobile electronic device location arrival information for any respective location;

mobile electronic device location arrival information for any respective range;

time within respective locations;

mobile electronic device time information within respective ranges;

interaction with others user; and

information regarding the altering of system settings within locations.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the spot alert is an advertisement.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the network is a social network.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the spot alert is a coupon.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the spot alert is a price discount.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the spot alert is an award.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the spot alert data further comprises for each respective spot alert at least the following information:

respective spot location information, respective spot comment information, and respective spot approved recipient information.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising the step of receiving, using the one or more communications portals, modified spot alert data that comprises at least one of (i) respective spot location information, (ii) respective spot range information, (iii) respective spot comment information, and (iv) respective spot approved recipient information.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the modified spot alert data at least one of creates, edits, and restricts the spot alert data based on the respective spot approved recipient information.

22. The method of claim 19, wherein the respective spot approved recipient information comprises at least one of a single recipient, a plurality of recipients, a tiered level of recipients, and a nodal relationship of recipients.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein the spot alert data comprises at least one of monophonic, polyphonic, sounds and voice-overs, and audio-visual file format.

24. The method of claim 1, wherein the spot alert data comprises a video codec file format used to encode video data, and a video codec file format used to compress video data.

25. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

periodically identifying, using the one or more processors, the location of the mobile electronic device during a particular period of time.

26. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of receiving, using the one or more processors, image data to be associated with the spot alert.

27. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of receiving, using the one or more processors, audio data to be associated with the spot alert.

28. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of receiving, using one or more processors, comments to be associated with the spot alert.

29. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of receiving, using the one or more processors, new spot alert data associated with one or more new spot alerts, the new spot alert data comprising geographical range information associated with each of the one or more new spot alerts that is the same as the geographical range information associated with each of the one or more spot alerts.

30. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of receiving, using the one or more processors, video data to be associated with the spot alert.