US 7,412,400 B1 · System and method for providing personal location information to location consumers from a location services server

Abstract

A system and method for providing a location owner's location information to third parties (location consumers) is provided. The location server obtains an owner profile controlling access to the location owner's location information. A location consumer requests the location owner's location information through a location request. The location server determines whether the location consumer is authorized to access the location owner's location information according to access information in the owner profile. If the location consumer is authorized to access the information, the location server obtains location information from a location provider and returns the location information to the location consumer. The location consumer may also subscribe to a location owner, such that when an identified subscription event occurs, the location server notifies the location consumer of the location owner's current location. The location server repeatedly notifies the location consumer when the subscription event occurs or until the subscription is terminated.

Claims59

Dependent claims

A computer system for providing information about the location of a location owner to a location consumer in response to the receipt of a location request from said location consumer comprising:

(a) data storage for storing location owner profile information, the profile information provided by said third party location owner including authorization information specific to one or more location consumers, suitable for authorizing and controlling access to information about the location of the associated location owner;
and
(b) a data processing system for:
(i) receiving a request from a location consumer for information about the current location of the location owner;
(ii) in response to the receipt of the request from the location consumer for information about the location of the location owner, obtaining location owner profile information from said data storage associated with said location owner;
(iii) obtaining from at least one third-party location provider information about the current location of said location owner;
(iv) processing the information provided by the at least one third-party location provider about the current location of said location owner in accordance with said location owner profile information obtained from said data storage;
and
(v) transmitting the result of said processing of the information provided by said third-party location provider to said location consumer requesting information about the current location of said location owner.

6 more elements

A method for providing information about the current location of a location owner to a location consumer in response to the receipt of a location request from the location consumer, comprising:

(a) in response to receiving a location request from the location consumer requesting information about the current location of a location owner, obtaining an owner profile associated with the location owner, the owner profiles having been provided by the location owner, including authorization information specific to one or more location consumers suitable for authorizing and controlling access to information about the location of the associated location owner;
(b) using the owner profile to determine whether the location consumer is authorized to receive information about the current location of the location owner;
and,
(c) if the location consumer is authorized to receive information about the current location of the location owner:
(i) obtaining information about the current location of the location owner from a third-party location provider;
(ii) processing the obtained information about the current location of the location owner in accordance with the owner profile;
and
(iii) transmitting the results of the processing of the obtained information to the location consumer.

5 more elements

A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions, said instructions are executed by one or more computers for providing location information about the current location of a location owner to a location consumer, comprising a core services module and a location provider module, the location provider module being communicatively coupled to the core services module, wherein:

(a) the core services module:
(i) obtains a location request from a location consumer requesting access to location information about current the location of a location owner;
(ii) obtains an owner profile associated with the location owner, the owner profile provided by the location owner, from an owner profile database communicatively coupled to the core services module, wherein the owner profile includes authorization information specific to one or more location consumers for authorizing and controlling access by the location consumer to the location owner's current location information;
(iii) determines whether the location consumer is authorized to access the location owner's current location information according to the owner profile, and if the location consumer is authorized according to the results of the determination;
(iv) obtains the location owner's current location information from the location provider module;
(v) processes the current location information according to information in the owner profile;
and
(vi) transmits the current location information to the location consumer in response to the location request;
and
(b) the location provider module obtains the location owner's current location information from a third-party location provider.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

System and method for providing personal location information to location consumers from a location services server

Life of this patent

System and method for providing personal location information to location consumers from a location services server

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims59