Brokering of information acquisition by devices in a wireless network

• US 7,715,533 B2
• Filed: 04/27/2001
• Issued: 05/11/2010
• 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: Macer, Peter J., Waters, John Deryk, McDonnell, James Thomas Edward, Pradhan, Salil
• Primary Examiner(s): Elahee, Md S
• Application Number:
  US09/843,145
• Publication Number:
  US 20020160793A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,301 Days
• Field of Search: 455/422, 455/414, 455/466, 455/41.2, 379/67.1, 379/114.13, 379/88.15, 37926501-2661, 379/88.04, 379/88.08, 379/88.22, 705/28, 705/14, 705/37, 705/41, 705/17, 705/40, 705/77, 709/204, 709/206, 709/245, 709/202, 235/472.02, 370/310, 370/409, 707/100, 725/36, 340/7.23
• US Class Current: 379/88.22
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A mobile telephone of an advertiser broadcasts an advertisement over a wireless short range piconet link to a mobile telephone of a consumer. The advertisement is broadcast with a predetermined set of classification tags. The consumer phone has a filter set to accept only certain advertisements. When an advertisement of interest is received by the consumer phone it requests further details automatically via the piconet link and the advertiser phone provides the further details automatically via the piconet link. The consumer phone replies to the advertisement by sending a reply message to a broker device that changes (i.e., modifies or augments the reply message text) and communicates the changed reply message to the advertiser.

Claims

1. A method of advertising comprising:

receiving, at a consumer telecommunications device, a first part of an advertisement broadcast via a short range link from an advertiser telecommunications device;

receiving a second part of the advertisement at the consumer telecommunications device, wherein the second part of the advertisement is received from the advertiser device by the consumer device after the consumer device has screened the first part of the advertisement;

replying to the advertisement by sending a reply message including message data from the consumer telecommunications device to an advertisement broker device;

changing the message data of the reply message at the broker device to derive a changed reply message that includes at least a substantial portion of the reply message; and

communicating the changed reply message from the broker device to the advertiser telecommunications device.

2. The method according to claim 1 in which the advertisement is received at a man portable consumer device.

3. The method according to claim 1 in which the consumer telecommunications device is a hand-holdable portable and pocketable device.

4. The method according to claim 1 in which the advertisement is broadcast from a man portable advertiser device.

5. The method according to claim 4 in which the advertiser device is a hand-holdable portable device.

6. The method according to claim 1 in which the advertiser telecommunications device does not include its own telecommunications address in the advertisement.

7. The method according to claim 6 further including the step of including a telecommunications address of the broker device in the advertisement broadcast by the advertiser telecommunications device.

8. The method according to claim 1 further including the steps of including one or more advertisement classification codes in the advertisement broadcast by the advertiser telecommunications device, and comparing the one or more advertising classification codes with allowable advertisement codes in an advertisement screening operation by the consumer telecommunications device.

9. The method according to claim 8 in which the consumer telecommunications device stores or brings to the attention of a user only those advertisements which are passed by the screening operation that the consumer telecommunications device performs on the broadcast advertisements that the consumer telecommunications device receives.

10. The method according to claim 1 in which the consumer telecommunications device replies to an advertisement via long range telecommunications to the advertiser telecommunications device.

11. The method according to claim 1 comprising using a mobile telephone, personal digital assistant, or other small portable electronic devices for both the advertiser telecommunications device and the consumer telecommunications device, the advertiser and consumer telecommunications devices both having both piconet short range and long range telecommunication capabilities.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein the change to the reply message includes augmenting the reply message.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein the change to the reply message includes modifying original text of the reply message.

14. The network according to claim 13, wherein the original text is modified by removing an identifier of a consumer.

15. The method according to claim 1, wherein the broker device is interposed in a telecommunications link between the advertiser device and the consumer telecommunications device.

16. The method according to claim 1, wherein the reply message communicated from the broker device to the advertiser telecommunications device is changed by the broker device changing the message data sent by the consumer telecommunications device by augmenting the message data in the reply message sent by the consumer telecommunications device to the broker device.

17. The method of claim 1, further including receiving additional advertisement information from the advertiser telecommunications device by the consumer telecommunications device in response to a request for additional information by the consumer telecommunications device to the advertisement.

18. The method according to claim 1 wherein the broker device changes the message data by blocking passage of at least one of (i) advertiser details to the consumer device and (ii) consumer details to the advertiser device.

19. The method according to claim 18 wherein the broker device changes the message data by blocking passage of the address of the advertiser telecommunications device to the consumer telecommunications device.

20. The method according to claim 1, wherein the reply message communicated from the broker device to the advertiser telecommunications device is changed by the broker device changing the message data sent by the consumer telecommunications device by deleting some of the message data in the reply message sent by the consumer telecommunications device to the broker device.

21. A server adapted to act as an advertisement broker device contactable via wireless telecommunications with a consumer device, the server including an arrangement adapted to (a) receive one of (i) an advertisement message from an advertiser device or (ii) a reply message to an advertisement from the consumer device, and (b) forward the received message to a remote telecommunications device;

the arrangement being adapted to modify the received message so as to ensure, at least initially, that no telecommunications address of an advertiser or replier to the advertisement is passed with the modified message that is forwarded by the server, wherein the advertisement has a first part and a second part, the second part being sent from the advertiser device to the consumer device after the consumer device has screened the first part.

22. The server of claim 21, wherein in at least one of the advertisement message or the reply message includes a telecommunications address and the server is adapted to remove the telecommunication address from at least one of advertisement data and the reply message to ensure that no telecommunication address of the advertiser or replier is passed with the message forwarded by the server.

23. A network comprising:

an advertiser device comprising a first telecommunications device having both a short range transmitter and receiver unit, and a long range telecommunications transmitter and receiver, a memory, and a processor, the memory including an advertisement;

a consumer device comprising a second telecommunications device, having;

(a) a short range, piconet transmitter and receiver unit, (b) a long range telecommunications transmitter and receiver unit, (c) a second memory, and (d) a control processor, the second memory or the control processor of the consumer device having an advertisement receiver which, in use, is capable of receiving and storing the advertisement, wherein the advertisement has a first part and a second part, and wherein the advertisement receiver is configured to receive the second part of the advertisement from the advertiser device after the consumer device has screened the first part;

and an advertisement broker device contactable via wireless telecommunications with both the advertiser and consumer devices, the broker device being adapted to selectively (a) pass advertiser details to the consumer device in response to triggering, (b) pass consumer details to the advertiser device in response to triggering, and (c) block passage of at least one of (i) advertiser details to the consumer device and (ii) consumer details to the advertiser device.

24. The network according to claim 23 in which the broker device is connectable with the advertiser device and the consumer device via long range wireless telecommunications.

25. The network of claim 23 wherein each the telecommunications devices includes a hybrid mobile telephone.

26. The network of claim 23, wherein the advertisement broker device includes a server 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, at least initially, that no telecommunications address of an advertiser or replier to an advertisement is passed with the message that is forwarded by the server.

27. The network of claim 23 wherein the broker device is arranged, during passing of details of the advertiser to the consumer device, to block passage of the address of the advertiser telecommunications devices to the consumer telecommunications device.

28. The network of claim 23 wherein the advertisement broker device is adapted to block passage of both (i) advertiser details to the consumer device and (ii) consumer details to the advertiser device.

29. A network comprising:

an advertiser device comprising a first telecommunications device having both a short range transmitter and receiver unit, and a long range telecommunications transmitter and receiver, a memory, and a processor, the memory including an advertisement;

a consumer device comprising a second telecommunications device, having (a) a short range, piconet transmitter and receiver unit, (b) a long range telecommunications transmitter and receiver unit, (c) a second memory, and (d) a control processor, the second memory or the control processor of the consumer device having an advertisement receiver which, in use, is capable of receiving and storing the advertisement, wherein the advertisement has a first part and a second part, and wherein the advertisement receiver is configured to receive the second part of the advertisement from the advertiser device after the consumer device has screened the first part; and

an advertisement broker device contactable via wireless telecommunications with both the advertiser and consumer devices, the broker device being adapted to selectively (a) pass consumer details to the advertiser device in response to triggering and (b) block passage of at least one of (i) advertiser details to the consumer device and (ii) consumer details to the advertiser device.

30. The network of claim 29 wherein the broker device is also adapted to selectively pass advertiser details to the consumer device.

31. The network of claim 29 wherein the advertisement broker device is adapted to block passage of both (i) advertiser details to the consumer device and (ii) consumer details to the advertiser device.