Systems and methods for position-based loaning of electronic documents to electronic device users

• US 9,013,267 B2
• Filed: 08/23/2011
• Issued: 04/21/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/24/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Concert Technology Corporation
• Original Assignee: Rhonda Enterprises, LLC (Concert Technology Corporation)
• Inventors: Curtis, Scott, Kandekar, Kunal
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Nam V
• Application Number:
  US13/215,507
• Publication Number:
  US 20120050004A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,337 Days
• Field of Search: 340/5.2, 340/539.32, 340/572.1, 340/686.6, 455/41.3, 455/456, 455/414, 455/266, 709/206, 709/217, 709/250, 726/1, 726/26
• US Class Current: 340/5.2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0214 Referral reward systems
• 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 4/21 for social networking applications

Abstract

Systems and methods for position-based loaning of electronic documents to electronic device users are disclosed herein. According to an aspect, a method may include determining a position of an electronic device. The method may also include determining a registration status associated with the electronic device. Further, the method may include communicating a portion of an electronic document to the electronic device based on the position and the registration status.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

at a first electronic device;

receiving, from a second electronic device, a request for at least one electronic document available for share;

in response to the request, communicating, to the second electronic device, a list of electronic documents available for share;

receiving selection of the at least one electronic document from the list of electronic documents available for share;

receiving a user identifier associated with the second electronic device from the second electronic device;

verifying a registration status of the user identifier associated with the second electronic device with at least one of a social network and an electronic document identifier; and

in response to verifying the registration status of the user identifier associated with the second electronic device, communicating, to the second electronic device, a portion of the at least one electronic document and information restricting use of the portion of the at least one electronic document.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a position of the first electronic device with respect to the second electronic device.

3. The method of claim 2,

wherein determining the position comprises determining whether the first electronic device is positioned within a predetermined distance from the second electronic device, and

wherein the portion of the electronic document is communicated to the second electronic device in response to determining that the first electronic device is positioned within the predetermined distance from the second electronic device.

4. The method of claim 2,

wherein determining the position comprises determining whether the first electronic device and the second electronic device are in wireless communication, and

wherein the portion of the at least one electronic document is communicated to the second electronic device in response to determining that the first electronic device and the second electronic device are in wireless communication.

5. The method of claim 2,

wherein determining the position comprises determining whether a signal quality of a wireless communication connection between the first electronic device and the second electronic device is greater than a predetermined signal quality level, and

wherein the portion of the at least one electronic document is communicated to the second electronic device in response to determining that the signal quality of the wireless communication connection between the first electronic device and the second electronic device is greater than the predetermined signal quality level.

6. The method of claim 2,

wherein determining the position comprises:

determining a position coordinate of the first electronic device and a position coordinate of the second electronic device;

determining whether a distance between the position coordinate of the first electronic device and the position coordinate of the second electronic device is less than a predetermined distance, and

wherein the portion of the at least one electronic document is communicated to the second electronic device in response to determining that the distance between the position coordinate of the first electronic device and the position coordinate of the second electronic device is less than the predetermined distance.

7. The method of claim 2,

wherein determining the position comprises:

using a ranging protocol of a wireless communication connection between the first electronic device and the second electronic device to determine a distance between the first and second electronic devices; and

determining whether the distance is less than a predetermined distance, and wherein the portion of the at least one electronic document is communicated to the second electronic device in response to determining that the distance is less than the predetermined distance.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein communicating, to the second electronic device, the portion of the at least one electronic document comprises communicating the portion of the at least one electronic document from the first electronic device to a server associated with the electronic document provider for delivery to the second electronic device.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising communicating an encryption key to the server for use in communicating the at least one electronic document to the second electronic device.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein verifying a registration status of the user identifier associated with the second electronic device comprises:

communicating the user identifier to a server for verification of registration with the at least one of the social network and the electronic document provider; and

receiving verification that the user identifier is registered with the at least one of the social network and the electronic document provider.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein receiving verification comprises receiving authorization information associated with the user identifier.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the user identifier comprises a password associated with the user identifier.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying the portion of the at least one electronic document.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the identified portion comprises one of an identified page, chapter, paragraph, sentence, and image of the at least one electronic document.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein communicating, to the second electronic device, the portion of the at least one electronic document comprises communicating to the second electronic device at least a portion of the at least one electronic document that is currently being displayed on the first electronic device.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising communicating to the second electronic device one or more bookmarks that identify one or more positions within the portion of the at least one electronic document.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the information restricting use of the portion of the at least one electronic document is based on a position of the first electronic device with respect to the position of the second electronic device.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the information restricting use of the portion of the at least one electronic document comprises a predetermined time period for accessing the portion of the at least one electronic document.

19. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a referral credit from the electronic document provider based on the communication of the portion of the at least one electronic document to the second electronic device.

20. The method of claim 1,

comprising:

determining a social network relation between a user identifier associated with the first electronic device and the user identifier associated with a second electronic device; and

determining the portion of the electronic document for communication to the second electronic device based on the social network relation.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the information restricting use of the portion of the electronic document is based on the social network relation.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the information restricting use of the portion of the at least one electronic document comprises a predetermined time period that the second electronic device may access the at least one electronic document based on the social network relation.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein communicating, to the second electronic device, the portion of the at least one electronic document comprises communicating the entirety of the electronic document to the second electronic device.

24. An electronic device comprising:

an electronic document manager configured to;

receive, from another electronic device, a request for at least one electronic document available for share;

in response to the request, communicate, to the another electronic device, a list of electronic documents available for share;

receive a selection of the at least one electronic document from the list of electronic documents available for share from the another electronic device;

receive a user identifier associated with the another electronic device from the another electronic device;

verify a registration status of the user identifier associated with the another electronic device with at least one of a social network and an electronic document identifier; and

a communications interface configured to communicate a portion of the at least one electronic document and information restricting use of the portion of the at least one electronic document to the another electronic device in response to verifying the registration status of the user identifier associated with the another electronic device.

25. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions for performing the following steps:

at a first electronic device;

receiving, from a second electronic device, a request for at least one electronic document available for share;

in response to the request, communicating, to the second electronic device, a list of electronic documents available for share;

receiving selection of the at least one electronic document from the list of electronic documents available for share;

receiving a user identifier associated with the second electronic device from the second electronic device;

verifying a registration status of the user identifier associated with the second electronic device with at least one of a social network and an electronic document provider; and

in response to verifying the registration status of the user identifier associated with the second electronic device, communicating, to the second electronic device, a portion of the at least one electronic document and information restricting use of the portion of the at least one electronic document.