Determining eligibility for multiple client media streaming
AssigneeDISH Technologies L.L.C.
InventorsMax S. Gratton, Timothy Robert Jezek
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods, systems and devices to authorize access to a simultaneous media streams are described. After a first media stream is initiated with a first client device, an authorization service receives a request to establish the simultaneous second media stream with a second client device. The service determines whether the second client device is at a geographic location where simultaneous streaming is allowed, and grants or denies access to the second simultaneous stream accordingly.
Claims11
An automated process executed by a computer system to authorize access to a media stream by a mobile device that is communicating with the computer system from a geographic location via a cellular network, the method comprising:
- receiving a request from the mobile device at the computer system, wherein the request was transmitted by the mobile device on the cellular network and comprises a network address that uniquely identifies the mobile device on the cellular network;
- verifying that a different device previously authorized by the computer system is receiving a simultaneous media stream, wherein the different device is communicating with the computer system via a local area network that is different from the cellular network using a different network address, and wherein the simultaneous media stream is received by the different device via the local area network;
- determining, by the computer system, if the mobile device and the different device are both located in the same geographic location, wherein the determining comprises providing the network address of the mobile device on the cellular network and the different network address of the different device on the local area network to a geographic database, and the computer system receiving in response information identifying the geographic locations of the mobile device and the different device based upon the network address and the different address, respectively;
- and
- granting the mobile device, by the computer system, access to the media stream via the cellular network that is different from the local area network only if the mobile device is determined, based upon the response information, to be located at the same geographic location as the different device previously authorized by the computer system and otherwise denying the mobile device access to the media stream via the cellular network.
A computer system to authorize access to a media stream by a mobile device operating at a geographic location, the computer system comprising:
- an interface to a network;
- a processor configured to receive a request to establish the media stream with the mobile device that is transmitted by the mobile device via a cellular network, to determine whether the mobile device is located at a same geographic location as a different client device that is simultaneously receiving a previously-approved media stream at the same geographic location but via a different network other than the cellular network, and, if the mobile device is located at the same geographic location as the different client device, to grant the mobile device simultaneous access to the media stream via the cellular network, and to otherwise deny the access to the media stream by the mobile device;
- and
- a geolocation database stored on a digital storage medium, wherein the geolocation database is configured to receive network addresses from the processor and to responsively provide response information indicating the geographic locations of the different client device and the mobile device to the processor based upon the network addresses, wherein the mobile device operates on the cellular network with a first address and the different client device operates on the different network other than the cellular network with a second address;
- wherein the processor grants the mobile device access to the simultaneous media stream via the cellular network only if response information from the geolocation database indicates that the mobile device is physically located at the same geographic location as the different client device receiving the previously-approved media stream even though the first and second addresses indicate that the mobile device and the different client device are operating on different networks.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.