Methods and apparatus for providing location dependent cellular telephone communications
OwnerJames D. Loganinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods and apparatus for establishing a telephone connection with a telephone station set located near to a desired location. Participating telephone users submit log-in data containing their current geographic location, their telephone number and a designation of the service or function they provide. Users submit requests specifying a desired location, a range value, and a desired service and obtain a response identifying participants who are currently located within the stated range of the desired location that perform the desired service, enabling the requestor to establish a telephone connection with the desired party.
Claims19
A data server for facilitating communication between consenting participants via a telephone network said data server comprising, in combination,
- a database for storing cross-referencing data that specifies, for each of given one of said participants, the current geographic location of said given participant and the telephone number of said given participant,
- means for receiving log-in messages from a new participant, said log-in message containing data specifying the current geographic location of said new participant and the telephone number of said new participant,
- means for posting the data contained in each of said log-in messages in said database,
- means for receiving a broadcast request from a requesting one of said participants, said broadcast request specifying a geographic region within which a targeted subset of said participants are currently located,
- means responsive to said broadcast request for submitting a query to said database to obtain the telephone numbers of each participant in said targeted subset of said participants, and
- means for broadcasting an information message via said telephone network to each of said telephone numbers.
The method of sharing information via a telephone network between consenting participants comprising, in combination, the steps of:
- establishing a database which contains descriptive information about a plurality of active participants, said descriptive information including the telephone number and the geographic location of each of said active participants,
- accepting a log-in request from a formerly inactive participant and in response thereto including said formerly inactive participant in said plurality of active participants,
- accepting a log-off request from a withdrawing active participant to thereafter exclude said withdrawing participant from said plurality of active participants,
- accepting a broadcast message from an active one of said participants directed to a specified target geographic region,
- consulting said database to obtain the telephone numbers of active participants whose geographic location is within said target geographic region, and
- relaying said broadcast message via the telephone network to said telephone numbers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.