Geofence information delivery systems and methods

• US 9,906,902 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2015
• Issued: 02/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/02/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: GeoFrenzy, Inc
• Original Assignee: GeoFrenzy, Inc
• Inventors: Jones, Benjamin T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Hitesh
• Application Number:
  US14/755,669
• Publication Number:
  US 20160360360A1
• Time in Patent Office: 973 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/604 Tools and structures for managing or administering access control systems
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/00 Burglar, theft or intruder alarms
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0052 for cruising combined instruments indicating more than one navigational value G01C23/00
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/006 in accordance with predefined flight zones, e.g. to avoid prohibited zones
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0069 specially adapted for an unmanned aircraft
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/025 Navigation or guidance aids radar or analogous systems specially adapted for landing purposes G01S13/913
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2816 Controlling appliance services of a home automation network by calling their functionalities arrangements in telecontrol or telemetry systems for selectively calling a substation from a main station; in which substation desired apparatus is selected for applying a control signal thereto or for obtaining measured values therefrom H04Q9/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/659 Internet protocol version 6 [IPv6] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/69 using geographic information, e.g. room number
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5007 Internet protocol [IP] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/107 wherein the security policies are location-dependent, e.g. entities privileges depend on current location or allowing specific operations only from locally connected terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/563 Data redirection of data network streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/08 Access security
• 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 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• 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

Abstract

The present invention is directed to methods and systems for requesting information from a mobile device with a fencing agent. The fencing agent determines a position with a DNS resolver, queries geofences with an IP address, receives an anchor point with an IP address from the DNS resolver. The device with the fencing agent is able to receive multiple anchor points within multiple geofences within an ROI and translate fence points into fence geometries. Geofence information is stored and registered in a database of geofences, and each geofence is associated with a plurality of geographic designators, wherein each of the plurality of geographic designators is associated with an IP address.

Claims

1. A method for requesting information for at least one geofence by at least one device having a processor coupled with a memory and programmed to include a fencing agent to query for geofence information, comprising the steps of:

generating a request for geofence information for a region of interest (ROI);

determining a position of the at least one device with a Domain Name System (DNS) resolver;

using an Internet Protocol (IP) address to query for geofences in the ROI;

receiving in near real-time geofence information corresponding to the ROI including at least one anchor point with at least one IP address from the DNS resolver associated with at least one class and at least one entitlement;

wherein the geofence information includes identification of at least one geofence in the ROI, and the fencing agent translates the geofence information, including a set of fence points, into a fence geometry;

determining a license associated with the at least one geofence; and

activating at least one rule associated with the license on the at least one device,

wherein the at least one geofence is defined by at least one geographic designator; and

wherein the at least one rule includes a rule directed to a content stored on the at least one device within the at least one geofence.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one class and the at least one entitlement are associated with the at least one anchor point with the at least one IP address, wherein the fencing agent filters classes on the at least one device.

3. The method of claim 2, further including the step of automatically providing a reason code or a violation code for the at least one entitlement with the geofence information.

4. The method of claim 2, further including the steps of automatically providing a reason code or a violation code to the at least one device for the at least one entitlement and the at least one device responding accordingly, based upon how it has been programmed to respond.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the response includes compliance with at least one rule associated with the at least one entitlement.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of receiving a request from the at least one device for activating the at least one rule associated with the license.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of receiving an activation message.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the activation message includes terms of payment, terms of time, terms of use, terms of termination, terms of assignability, terms of content, terms of confidentiality, a warranty, post-termination rights, and/or a notice.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of activating the at least one rule associated with the license on the at least one device includes transmitting an activation packet to the at least one device, wherein transmitting the activation packet to the at least one device transforms the at least one device from a first state to a second state.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of receiving an acceptance of a license agreement from the at least one device before activating the at least one rule associated with the license for the at least one device.

11. The method of claim 5, further comprising the step of:

automatically blocking an attempt by the at least one device to access a website based on the at least one rule associated with the at least one entitlement.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of storing information relating to the at least one rule associated with the license in a geofence database.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one rule includes a rule restricting or enabling access to the content stored on the at least one device within the geofence.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the fence geometry is a polygon or centroid geometry in geoJSON format.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one class includes an indication of whether the at least one geofence is verified or unverified.

16. A system for requesting information for at least one geofence by at least one device within a geofence, comprising:

the at least one device having a processor coupled with a memory, constructed and configured for wireless communication, and programmed to include a fencing agent to query for geofence information in a region of interest (ROI) over a network to at least one server computer associated with a geofence database, a Domain Name System (DNS) resolver used by the fencing agent to determine a position of the at least one device, and an Internet Protocol (IP) address used to query for geofences in the ROI;

the geofence database including at least one registered geofence having a class and at least one entitlement and/or at least one license, wherein the at least one registered geofence is determined by at least one geographic designator that is automatically associated with at least one corresponding IP address, wherein the at least one corresponding IP address is automatically converted to an anchor point for the at least one registered geofence; and

a geofence manager module implementing rules on the at least one device,

wherein the geofence manager module confirms and/or activates the at least one license associated with the geofence in the geofence database; and

wherein the fencing agent creates a continuous production of geometry and automatically resolves anchor points.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the class includes an indication of whether the at least one registered geofence is verified or unverified.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein multiple anchor points exist for multiple geofences within the ROI and the fencing agent monitors each of the geofences.