US 8,527,486 B2Granted

Mobile application discovery through mobile search

AssigneeKii, Inc.

InventorsChristof Wittig, John W. Stossel

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

A social mobile network enables discovery of application programs running on the mobile devices. A search for partial or full matches to a group of alphanumeric characters is performed on the data stored on the first mobile communication device on which the search is initiated. The search is also performed on data made available to the user of the first mobile communication device by other users, where each user is associated with a different one of a multitude of mobile communication devices. The sharing of the data and the search for shared data is made via a server with which the mobile communication devices are in communication. The discovery of applications whose names or descriptions are partially or fully matched to the alphanumeric characters is made despite the fact that user was not looking for or aware of the existence of such application programs.

Claims15

Dependent claims

A method for performing a text search defined by a plurality of alphanumeric characters and initiated on a first mobile communication device associated with a first user, the method comprising:

searching for partial or full matches to the alphanumeric characters on data stored on the first mobile communication device;
searching for partial or full matches to the alphanumeric characters on data made available to the first user for sharing by a first plurality of other private users who are within a social mobile network of the first user, said first plurality of other private users being associated with a plurality of mobile communication devices, the first mobile communication device and the plurality of mobile communication devices being in communication with a server;
searching for partial or full matches to the alphanumeric characters on application programs running on the plurality of mobile communication devices;
and
ranking a first partially or fully matching application program name higher than a second partially or fully matching application program name that has been used less frequently than the first partially or fully matching application program;
and
displaying matching search results.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 12/494,044Filed 29 Jun 2009 · us provisional application
Priority: 27 Jun 2008
Published: US 2010/0010994 A114 Jan 2010
Granted: 3 Sep 2013
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification4 codes

G06F 16/951
Retrieval from the web: indexing; Web crawling techniques
G06F 16/176
Details of further file system functions: support for shared access to files; File sharing support
G06F 16/9538
Querying, e.g. by the use of web search engines: presentation of query results
G06F
Computing and data processing

Family

Application61/076,324Us provisional application · filed 27 Jun 2008
Application61/076,349Us provisional application · filed 27 Jun 2008
Application61/076,373Us provisional application · filed 27 Jun 2008
Application61/095,072Us provisional application · filed 8 Sep 2008
Application61/095,108Us provisional application · filed 8 Sep 2008
Application61/095,143Us provisional application · filed 8 Sep 2008
US 2010/0010994 A1Pre-grant publication · published 14 Jan 2010
US 8,527,486 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.