Profiles for information acquisition by devices in a wireless network

• US 20020160759A1
• Filed: 04/27/2001
• Published: 10/31/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 04/27/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Pradhan, Salil, McDonnell, James Thomas Edward, Macer, Peter J., Waters, John Deryk
• Granted Patent: US 6,968,178 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/414.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0256 User search
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0267 Wireless devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0276 Advertisement creation

Abstract

A mobile telephone (10), an advertiser, broadcasts an advertisement over a wireless short range piconet link to another mobile telephone (12), a consumer. The advertisement is broadcast with a predetermined set of classification tags and the consumer phone (12) has a filter set to accept only certain adverts. When an advertisement of interest is received by the consumer phone (12) it requests further details automatically via the piconet link and the advertiser phone (10) provides then automatically via the piconet link. When the consumer wishes to reply to the advertisement they contact the advertiser phone (10), or an advertiser device, via a long range cellular link (16).

Claims

1. A method of advertising comprising an advertiser telecommunications device emitting an advertisement over a short range via a short range wireless transmitter, the advertisement having a characterisation profile associated with it conveying information about the type of advertisements, of goods or services being offered or both;

a consumer telecommunications device receiving the short range wireless advertisement;

the consumer telecommunications device having an advertisement filter provided with an allowable advertisement characteristics profile and the consumer device comparing the received advertisement characteristic profile with its filter profile and accepting advertisements which match its advertisement characteristics profile to an acceptable degree and rejecting advertisements whose characteristics profile does not match to an acceptable degree; and

offering to present to a user the accepted advertisements received by the consumer device.

2. A method according to claim 1 comprising presenting the advertisements to the user via the consumer device, the consumer device comprising a hand-portable electronic device.

3. A method according to claim 2 comprising using a mobile telephone or a personal digital assistant as the hand-portable electronic device.

4. A method according to claim 1 comprising setting either the advertisement characteristics of the consumer, or of the advertiser device, or both by using a selection of characteristics from a restrictive set of allowable characteristics.

5. A method according to claim 1 comprising interacting with an advertisement protocol manager system to set the consumer device advertisement characteristics filter profile, or the advertisement characteristics profile, or both.

6. A method according to claim 5 in which the interaction with the advertisement protocol manager is via wireless telecommunications, at least in part.

7. A method according to claim 5 comprising interacting with the same protocol manager system to set up the consumer device advertisement characteristics of the advertisement.

8. A method according to claim 1 comprising replying to an advertisement via the consumer telecommunications device.

9. A method according to claim 1 comprising presenting the advertisement to a user via a display screen of the consumer telecommunications device.

10. A method according to claim 1 comprising the user manually selecting adverts for further investigation.

23. A method according to claim 1 comprising broadcasting a short range short-form advertisement;

making an assessment as to whether a reply to the advertisement is required, and if so replying to the advertisement via long range telecommunications.

27. A method according to claim 1 comprising replying to the advertisement via a broker device interposed in the telecommunications link between the advertiser device and the consumer device.

30. A method according to claim 1 comprising using portable electronic devices for both the advertiser device and the consumer device, the devices both having both piconet short range and long range telecommunication capabilities.

11. A method of advertising comprising communicating a first part of an advertisement from an advertiser telecommunications device to a consumer telecommunications device via wireless short range telecommunications, and the consumer device requesting a fuller advertisement or further details from an advertisement follow-up device.

12. A method according to claim 11 in which the consumer device is a mobile telephone, personal digital assistant, or other hand-portable electronic device.

13. A method according to claim 11 comprising using short range wireless telecommunications to communicate the request for further details from the consumer device to the advertisement follow up device.

14. A method according to claim 11 in which the fuller advertisement or the further details are provided to the consumer device via short or long range wireless telecommunications.

15. A method according to claim 11 in which the advertisement follow-up device is the same device as the advertiser device.

16. A method according to claim 15 in which the advertiser device is a mobile telephone, personal digital assistant, or other hand portable electronic device.

17. A method according to claim 11 in which the first part of the advertisement includes the telecommunications address of the advertisement follow up device.

18. A method according to claim 11 including the step of contacting an advertisement concluder device to accept what is being offered in the advertisement.

19. A method according to claim 18 in which the concluder device is contacted over a long range telecommunications network.

20. A method according to claim 11 in which the wireless communication between the consumer device and the advertisement follow-up device takes place within a second of the consumer device receiving the first part of the advertisement.

21. A method according to claim 13 in which the request for the fuller advertisement or further details is made automatically without user intervention.

22. A method according to claim 11 in which the consumer device has an advertisement filter and filters incoming advertisements and only requests fuller details, or further details, of advertisements that pass a screening selection.

24. A method according to claim 23 comprising trying to request further or fuller details of the advertisement via short range telecommunications, or via long range telecommunications.

25. A method according to claim 24 comprising trying to request further or fuller details of the advertisement via short range telecommunications and failing to make contact with an advertising device, and then trying to make contact with the advertising device via the long range telecommunications.

26. A method according to claim 23 in which receipt of the short form advertisement prompts the consumer device to request more information via the short range telecommunications automatically if the short form advertisement triggers a trigger to do so.

28. A method according to claim 27 in which the broker device modifies the message sent by the consumer device to the advertiser device, or modifies any follow-up message sent by the advertiser device, or a proxy or master advertising device, to the consumer device.

29. A method according to claim 27, in which the advertiser device does not include its own telecommunications address in its broadcast advert, but does include the telecommunications address of the broker device.

31. A mobile telephone or other portable telecommunications device comprising a short range piconet receiver and an advertisement filter, the receiver being capable of receiving piconet advertisements and the filter being, in use, capable of comparing a characterisation profile associated with a received advertisement with an allowable advertisement characteristics profile of the filter and to determine whether there is a match to an acceptable level, and to accept those adverts which match the filter or which are not screened out by the filter.

32. A device according to claim 31 in which the filter is adapted to screen an advertisement positively into being accepted, or to screen an advertisement out so that it is definitely rejected, or both.

33. A device according to claim 31 in which the filter can be configured by a user by connecting the device, via telecommunications, to a filter protocol setting device.

34. A device according to claim 31 comprising a piconet emitter, and being configured so as to emit automatically via its piconet emitter a request for more information about an advertisement upon an advertisement being accepted by the filter.

35. A device according to claim 31 comprising a long range telecommunications antenna or link.

36. A device according to claim 31 comprising a display screen adapted to display the advertisement.

37. A device according to claim 31 comprising a memory and a control processor, the memory being arranged to store telecommunications addresses for advertisements that have been accepted by the filter, and in which the device is arranged to attempt to contact an advertiser device automatically via its piconet telecommunications facility upon determining that a received advertisement is accepted by the filter;

and wherein the device has an advertisement store and is adapted to store in the advertisement store further information or a fuller advertisement that it receives associated with the successful receipt and acceptance by its filter of an initial advert.

38. A device according to claim 37 in which the advertisement store includes an advertisement reply address store adapted to receive a telecommunications address for replying to the advert.

40. A device according to claim 39 in which the reply trigger comprises the output of a comparator adapted to compare characteristics of the message with a predetermined set of screening characteristics and to cause a reply to be transmitted if predetermined conditions are met.

41. A device according to claim 39 which has both piconet and long range telecommunications emitters and receivers and the controller is adapted, in use, to assess the telecommunications address to determine whether the reply address is a short range piconet address or a long range telecommunications address and to cause the reply to be emitted by the appropriate long or short range emitter of the device.

42. A device according to claim 39 in which the controller of the device is adapted to assess a received message to determine whether the message is of a category of interest, and if so request further details or a fuller message via its piconet channel and in which the device is adapted to receive requested further details of a fuller message via its piconet channel;

and the device is adapted to contact a reply address via its long distance telecommunications channel.

39. A mobile telecommunications device having a memory, a short range wireless telecommunications receiver, an emitter, and a controller, the controller controlling the device in use to assess messages received by the receiver for a reply telecommunications address and to store any such reply address in the memory, and the device also having a reply trigger adapted in use to cause the controller to use an address from the memory send a reply to a received message to the address associated with the relevant incoming message via the emitter when the reply trigger is activated.

43. A mobile telephone or other mobile telecommunications device having both a long range telecommunications transmitter and receiver, and a piconet telecommunications transmitter and receiver, a control processor, and a memory storage medium;

wherein the memory storage medium contains an advertisement to be transmitted via the piconet transmitter, said advertisement having associated with it a number of advertisement classification codes identifying one or more characteristics of the advertisement, the control processor being adapted to broadcast the advertisement over the piconet transmitter and being adapted to monitor piconet signals that are received by the piconet receiver for a reply.

44. A device according to claim 43, in which the control processor is adapted to recognise a piconet-received request for further information or a fuller advertisement and to cause such further information or fuller advertisement to be emitted automatically upon receipt of a request for it.

45. A device according to claim 43 in which the control processor is adapted to provide a reply telecommunications address in the advertisement or further details or fuller advertisement.

46. A device according to claim 45 adapted to provide in the advertisement or further detail or fuller advertisement both in long range, non-piconet, reply address and a piconet reply address.

48. A server according to claim 47 having a data base of allowable advertisement categories.

49. A server according to claim 47 in which the server has an advertisement screening function which is adapted to take free text or free voice adverts and to recognise certain words and correlate the free form words with an allocated at least one constrained allowable category, and to send the allowable categories to a remote telecommunications device.

50. A server according to claim 49 which is adapted to act as an advertisement broker device adapted to receive one of (i) an advertisement message or (ii) a reply message to an advertisement and to forward the received message to a remote telecommunications device;

the server being adapted to modify the received message so as to ensure no telecommunications address is passed with the message that is transmitted by the server.

51. A server according to claim 50 which is adapted to store the direct telecommunications address of the provider of the message and to recall that address and forward it to a remote telecommunications device if a release signal has been received by the server.

47. An advertisement protocol management server having an input connectable to remote telecommunication devices, and an output connectable to remote telecommunications devices, and a control processor;

and wherein said control processor has access to an allowable controlled and restricted set of allowed advertisement categories and is capable of (i) operating on an input advertisement input to the server via said input to produce an output advertisement which has associated with it an appropriately selected subset of allowed advertisement categories, and to output said output advertisement via said output;

or (ii) communicating with a remote telecommunications device via said output to allow said remote telecommunications device to construct an advertisement filter, either on the remote device or on the server, the filter comprising a selected subset of said allowable advertisement categories, and the selected processor being capable of passing the filter to the remote device;

or (iii) performing both task (i) and task (ii).

52. A network comprising an advertiser device comprising a hybrid mobile telephone, or other telecommunications device, having both a short range transmitter and receiver, and also a long range telecommunications transmitter and receiver, a memory, and a control processor;

the memory containing an advertisement which comprises at least an advertisement category profile containing a subset of possibly allowable advertisement categories;

a consumer device comprising a hybrid mobile telephone, or other telecommunications device, having both a short range, e.g. piconet, transmitter and receiver, and also a long range telecommunications transmitter and receiver, a memory and a control processor, the memory or the processor having an advertisement filter which, in use, compares an advertisement category profile with a filter profile of a subset of allowable advertisement categories, or specifically rejected advertisement categories, and determines whether an advertisement received by the consumer device is an advertisement that the filter will pass or reject, the control processor being arranged to draw to the attention of the user of the consumer device, in use, the presence of an allowable advertisement that has been accepted by the filter.

53. A network according to claim 52, further comprising an advertisement protocol management server having an input connectable to remote telecommunication devices, and an output connectable to remote telecommunications devices, and a control processor;

and wherein said control processor has access to an allowable controlled and restricted set of allowed advertisement categories and is capable of (i) operating on an input advertisement input to the server via said input to produce an output advertisement which has associated with it an appropriately selected subset of allowed advertisement categories, and to output said output advertisement via said output;

or (ii) communicating with a remote telecommunications device via said output to allow said remote telecommunications device to construct an advertisement filter, either on the remote device or on the server, the filter comprising a selected subset of said allowable advertisement categories, and the selected processor being capable of passing the filter to the remote device;

or (iii) performing both task (i) and task (ii).

54. A network according to claim 52 also including a remote advertisement broker or advertisement reply device contactable via the long range emitter of the consumer device, and capable of contacting the advertiser device by the long range receiver of the advertiser device.

55. A method of creating an advertisement on a telecommunications device, the method comprising having the device submit a free form advertisement to an advertisement writer tool and having the tool assess the advertisement and allocate to it a selected advertisement subset of a set of allowable advertisement characterisation categories, and the advertisement writer tool communicating the selected advertisement subset of allowable advertisement categories to the telecommunications device.

56. A method according to claim 55 comprising communicating between the device and the advertisement writer tool via wireless long range telecommunications.

58. A method according to claim 57 in which the service provider, or advertisement writer/filter creator tool comprises the same device which has a common allowable list of categories and standard keywords.

57. A method of creating an advertisement filter on a telecommunications device, the method comprising connecting the device to a remote filter—

creating device via telecommunications;

creating a subset of allowable advertisement categories by selecting, via the telecommunications device, the subset from a master set of possible advertisement categories held on the filter creating device;

transmitting the subset of allowable categories to the telecommunications device to create the filter on the telecommunications device and storing the filter on the telecommunications device.