Method, device arrangement, terminal device of a cellular network and a program application in the terminal device for giving a location-based alert

• US 20050009573A1
• Filed: 06/14/2004
• Published: 01/13/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 06/12/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: Nokia Corporation
• Inventors: Tokkonen, Timo
• Granted Patent: US 7,221,948 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/567
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72445 for supporting Internet browser applications

Abstract

The invention relates to a method and a device arrangement utilizing the method and a mobile terminal device (14) belonging to the device arrangement, in which method for giving an alert to the user of a cellular network terminal device (14), the user at first searches for interesting objects from the information networks (12) by means of a network browser in the data processing device (11), and after that saves the linking information of the found object as a bookmark into the personal bookmark archive (13). The bookmark archive can be located either in the cellular network terminal device (14), or in some data processing device, such as a server, to which the terminal device (14) can establish a data transfer connection. The information in the bookmark archive (13) is used for giving an alert to the mobile terminal device (14) about an object that interests the user.

Claims

1. A method for giving an alert to a user of a terminal device of a cellular network about an object that interests the user, in which method

the user searches for interesting objects from information networks by means of a network browser

saves the information of the object as a bookmark in a personal bookmark archive,

which information also comprises a piece of information indicating the geographical location of the object, and

where the piece of information indicating the geographical location of the object is used as an alert criterion in the terminal device.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein the bookmark archive used is in the terminal device of the cellular network.

3. The method according to claim 2 wherein only the bookmarks of the bookmark archive that can be reached by the user of the terminal device are utilized for giving an alert in the terminal device.

4. The method according to claim 3 wherein the alert is given only of the bookmarks in the memory of the terminal device that on the basis of a positioning of the terminal device can be reached by the user of the terminal device.

5. The method according to claim 4 wherein the positioning of the terminal device is carried out either by means of GPS or by utilizing a cellular network serving the terminal device.

6. The method according to claim 3 wherein after the user has acknowledged the received alert, a new alert is no more given of the bookmark during a period of time specified by the user or before the user has left the area in which the alert was given.

7. The method according to claim 1 wherein the bookmark archive is located in a data processing device or in a server in a data transfer network, from which the bookmarks of a certain geographical area are transferred to the terminal device for giving the alert.

8. A device arrangement for giving an alert to a user of a terminal device of a cellular network, the device arrangement comprising

a data processing device with a network browser for searching for objects that interest the user from information networks

a user-specific electronic bookmark archive for saving linking information of the objects the user has found from the information network as bookmarks,

which linking information comprises also a piece of information indicating the geographical location of the object, which is arranged to be used as an alert criterion in the terminal device, and

a mobile terminal device of a cellular network, to which bookmarks of the bookmark archive can be transferred for giving an alert of an interesting object.

9. The device arrangement according to claim 8 wherein the bookmark archive is in a server connected to the cellular network.

10. The device arrangement according to claim 9 wherein bookmarks of only the objects that can currently be reached by the user of the terminal device are arranged to be downloaded to the mobile terminal device from the bookmark archive.

11. The device arrangement according to claim 10 wherein the alert to the user of the terminal device is arranged to be given only of such a bookmark in the bookmark archive that on the basis of the positioning of the terminal device can be reached by the user of the terminal device.

12. The device arrangement according to claim 11 wherein the positioning of the terminal device is arranged to be carried out either by means of GPS or by utilizing a cellular network serving the terminal device.

13. The device arrangement according to claim 11 wherein after the user has given an acknowledgement for the received alert, a new alert can no more be given of the same bookmark during a period of time specified by the user or before the user has left the area in which the alert was given.

14. A terminal device of a cellular network,

which comprises means for transmitting and receiving messages, a

control unit, a memory and a user interface,

which is arranged to save in its memory a bookmark of an object that interests the user and a piece of information indicating the geographical location of the object associated with the bookmark, which piece of information has been arranged to be used in the terminal device as a criterion for alerting the user.

15. The terminal device according to claim 14 which also comprises means for determining the geographical location of the terminal device.

16. The terminal device according to claim 15 wherein the means for determining the geographical location of the terminal device comprise a GPS positioning device.

17. The terminal device according to claim 14 wherein the bookmarks saved in the terminal device and the location information of the objects associated with the bookmarks constitute a bookmark archive.

18. The terminal device according to claim 17 wherein only such bookmarks of the bookmark archive that can be reached by the user of the terminal device are arranged to be utilized as alert criteria in the mobile terminal device.

19. The terminal device according to claim 18 wherein the alert is arranged to be given only of such bookmarks in the memory of the terminal device that on the basis of the positioning of the terminal device can be reached by the user of the terminal device.

20. The terminal device according to claim 14 wherein after the user has acknowledged the received alert, the terminal device no more gives a new alert during a period of time specified by the user or before the user has left the area in which the alert was given.

21. The terminal device according to claim 14 wherein the bookmarks of only the objects that can be reached by the user of the terminal device are arranged to be saved into the mobile terminal device from an external bookmark archive.

22. A computer program saved in a terminal device of a cellular network comprising:

computer readable code means for saving a bookmark in a bookmark archive,

which bookmark also comprises a piece of information indicating the geographical location of the bookmark,

computer readable code means for processing a location information received by the terminal device, and

computer readable code means for giving an alert on the basis of the geographical location contained by such a bookmark which on the basis of the location information available to the terminal device can be reached by a user of the terminal device.