Determining a location of a mobile user terminal
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorMark Alastair Gillett
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Apparatus comprising a decision processing module arranged to determine whether a first mobile user terminal and a second mobile user terminal are within a relative geographic proximity of one another, in dependence on a property of intermediate network equipment of a packet-switched network to which the first and second mobile user terminals are operable to connect. The apparatus also comprises a location processing module arranged to obtain a geographic location of the second mobile user terminal and, on condition that the first and second user terminals are determined to be within the proximity determined by the decision module, to use the geographic location of the second mobile user terminal in estimating a geographic location of the first mobile user terminal.
Claims20
Apparatus comprising:
- a decision processing module arranged to determine whether a first, mobile user terminal and a second user terminal are within a relative geographic proximity of one another in dependence on a property of intermediate network equipment of a packet-switched network to which the first and second user terminals are operable to connect;
- and
- a location processing module arranged to obtain a geographic location of the second user terminal and, on condition that the first and second user terminals are determined to be within said proximity, to use the geographic location of the second user terminal in estimating a geographic location of the first user terminal.
A computer readable storage medium comprising code configured so as when executed on one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
- determining whether a first mobile user terminal and a second mobile user terminal are within a relative geographic proximity of one another, in dependence on a property of intermediate network equipment of a packet-switched network to which the first and second mobile user terminals are operable to connect;
- obtaining a geographic location of the second mobile user terminal;
- and
- on condition that the first and second user terminals are determined to be within said proximity, using the geographic location of the second mobile user terminal in estimating a geographic location of the first mobile user terminal.
A computer readable storage medium comprising code configured so as when executed on one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
- determining whether a first mobile user terminal and a second mobile user terminal are within a relative geographic proximity of one another, the first and second mobile user terminals being determined to be within said proximity on condition of being connected to a same wireless router or a same access point of a wireless local area network providing access to a packet-switched network;
- obtaining a geographic location of the second mobile user terminal using a satellite positioning system, wherein the first mobile user terminal is not equipped with access to any satellite based positioning system;
- and
- on condition that the first and second user terminals are determined to be within said proximity based on connection to said same wireless router or access point, using the geographic location of the second mobile user terminal in estimating a geographic location of the first mobile user terminal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.