Identifying future location and providing path crossing indications

• US 9,562,783 B2
• Filed: 10/01/2012
• Issued: 02/07/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/01/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ProxPro, Inc.
• Original Assignee: ProxPro, Inc.
• Inventors: Bourne, Julian J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Do, Truc M
• Application Number:
  US13/632,542
• Publication Number:
  US 20130231858A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,590 Days
• Field of Search: 701/424, 701/117, 701/408, 701/426, 701/439, 701/519, 701/532, 455/456.3, 455/414.1, 455/456.1, 455/404.2, 455/414.2, 455/415
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3407 specially adapted for specific applications
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72457 according to geographic location
• 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

Abstract

A user of a mobile device may use the technique to obtain future location-based situation awareness, e.g., a future location route displayed on the user'"'"'s mobile device. That future location route comprises the user'"'"'s future locations through time and space, e.g., a set of planned meetings at successive locations in a geographic area. A service that provides the user'"'"'s mobile device with the future location route may also alert the user of potential threats to the user'"'"'s planned activities, such as a restaurant being over-booked. On a permission basis, the user'"'"'s mobile device may also receive a future location route for at least one other person associated with the user in a social network. The other person'"'"'s future location route may be overlaid on the user'"'"'s route so that one or both individuals receive advance notifications of their potential to have their respective paths “crossing” during a future time period.

Claims

1. An article comprising a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium that stores a program, the program adapted to be executed by a machine to provide future location-based situation awareness to a user of a mobile device, the mobile device storing the user'"'"'s calendar and contact information, the program comprising:

program code to receive calendar data;

program code to receive contemporaneous location data;

program code to use the received calendar and contemporaneous location data to calculate, as a series of points, the user'"'"'s future locations through time and space;

program code to use the series of points to determine a future location route to be traveled by the user;

program code to generate data that represents the user'"'"'s future location path between a departure time and an anticipated arrival time as reflected in the calendar data, the departure time being computed at least in part by subtracting a predicted duration of a trip along the future location route from the anticipated arrival time; and

program code to receive user preference data entered on the display interface, the preference data identifying at least one social network relationship together with a distance or time threshold for identifying a path crossing opportunity with respect to the user'"'"'s future location path;

program code to correlate the user'"'"'s future location path and a future location path of at least one other user matching the social network relationship and the distance or time threshold to generate second data; and

program code to provide the second data to the mobile device to facilitate display on the mobile device display interface of the path crossing opportunity.

2. The article as described in claim 1 wherein the points are associated with given time intervals.

3. The article as described in claim 2 wherein each time interval is 15 minutes.

4. The article as described in claim 1 wherein the program includes program code to associate a social group tag with a location along the future location path.

5. The article as described in claim 4 wherein the program includes program code to identify a group and constituent members of the group associated with the social group tag.

6. The article as described in claim 5 wherein the program includes program code to generate a future location path for at least one constituent member of the group, the at least one constituent member of the group being the at least one other user matching the social network relationship and the distance of time threshold.

7. The article as described in claim 6 wherein the program includes program code to overlay the future location path for the at least constituent member of the group on the future location path for the user.

8. The article as described in claim 1 wherein the program further includes program code operative to issue a notification with respect to an occurrence associated with the future location path.

9. The article as described in claim 1 wherein the second data is devoid of geo-location information identifying an actual location of the at least one other user to protect privacy of the at least one other user.