Method and apparatus for obtaining contextually relevant content

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10812937-B2
Application number	US-60723109-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 28, 2009
Priority date	Dec 11, 2008
Publication date	Oct 20, 2020
Grant date	Oct 20, 2020

Abstract

A method of obtaining contextually relevant content by a wireless communications device is provided. The method may comprise obtaining, by a wireless communications device (WCD), a destination device identifying item, transmitting the destination device identifying item to a contextual content server, wherein the contextual content server determines one or more contextually relevant content items by processing the received destination device identifying item and a WCD location value, and receiving, from the contextual content server, at least one of the one or more contextually relevant content items.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of obtaining contextually relevant content by a wireless communications device (WCD), the method comprising:
detecting, by the WCD, initiation of a connection between the WCD and a destination device over a first communication path to establish a voice call with the destination device;
obtaining, by the WCD, a destination device identifying item based on the detected initiation of the connection and the destination device;
transmitting, by the WCD, while establishing the voice call with the destination device, the destination device identifying item to a contextual content server over a second communication path different than the first communication path, wherein the contextual content server determines one or more contextually relevant content items by processing the received destination device identifying item while the WCD is establishing the voice call with the destination device; and
receiving, by the WCD, from the contextual content server over the second communication path while establishing the voice call with the destination device, at least one of the one or more contextually relevant content items.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the contextual content server determines relevancy of the one or more contextually relevant content items with respect to at least one of: a WCD location value, a location associated with the destination device identifying item, textual content parsed from the destination device identifying item, a business or business category associated with the destination device identifying item, information obtained from an advertisement server, information obtained from a recommendations server, information obtained from a location server, or information obtained from a mobile operator associated with the WCD.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the one or more contextually relevant content items determined with respect to the WCD location value include at least one of: weather information, local news feeds, local events, local time, a local country specific exchange rate, a local country specific stock index trigger, one or more social networking site feed associated with a user of the WCD, one or more point of interest associated with the business category for the destination device identifying item within a predefined distance from the WCD location value, map information, map information for the at least one of the one or more points of interest, one or more recommendations for other businesses, coupons or directions to the location associated with the destination device identifying item.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the one or more contextually relevant content items determined with respect to the location associated with the destination device identifying item include at least one of: weather information, local news feeds, a business name, a business address, a business category, one or more points of interest associated with the business category within a predefined distance, map information, map information for the at least one of the one or more points of interest associated with the business category, one or more businesses related to the business category, recommendations for the one or more businesses related to the business category, directions to at least one of the one or more businesses related to the business category, or directions from the WCD location value to the location associated with the destination device identifying item.

5. The method of claim 2 , wherein the one or more contextually relevant content items determined with respect to the business or business category destination device identifying item includes one or more contextually relevant content items determined through extracting an alpha-numeric representation from the business destination device identifying item and using the extracted alpha-numeric representation to determine a business category or at least one related business.

6. The method of claim 2 , wherein the one or more contextually relevant content items determined with respect to the advertisement server are based on at least one of: a business associated with the destination device identifying item, a location associated with the destination device identifying item, or a location relationship between the WCD location value and the location associated with the destination device identifying item.

7. The method of claim 2 , wherein the one or more contextually relevant content items determined with respect to the mobile operator associated with the WCD include at least one of: one or more advertisements associated with the mobile operator, one or more advertisements from one or more content providers associated with the mobile operator, one or more advertisements associated with a business category for the destination device identifying item, or one or more advertisements associated with a user profile for a user associated with the WCD.

8. The method of claim 2 , wherein the contextual content server is associated with at least one of: the mobile operator, the advertisement server, or the recommendations server.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the obtaining the destination device identifying item further includes at least one of:
receiving a user inputted phone number from a user interface associated with the WCD,
receiving a user inputted phone number from an address book associated with the WCD,
receiving a user inputted value from a plurality of mobile operator provided values, or
receiving the destination device identifying item from the incoming call.

10. The method of claim 3 , wherein the WCD location information is obtained through at least one of:
receiving the WCD location value from a location sensor associated with the WCD, or
receiving the WCD location information from a user input, or
receiving the WCD location information from an area code of a phone number associated with the WCD, or
receiving the WCD location information from a location server.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the receiving further comprises:
receiving the at least one of the one or more contextually relevant content items during one or more operational intervals associated with the WCD, wherein the one or more operational intervals include at least one of: an interval prior to initiating a communication connection with the destination device identifying item, an interval prior to a communication connection being completed to the destination device identifying item, an interval during communications after the communication connection is established, or an interval after the communication connection is terminated.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the receiving during the interval prior to initiating a communication connection with the destination device identifying item further comprises:
displaying the one or more contextually relevant content items in response to a user input associated with an application displaying one or more non-contextually relevant content items.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein transmitting the destination device identifying item further comprises transmitting the destination device identifying item using at least one of:
a short message service (SMS) protocol,
an enhanced messaging service (EMS) protocol,
a multimedia message service (MMS) protocol,
an Internet Protocol (IP) socket protocol,
a code division multiple access (CDMA)-based protocol, or
a global system for mobile communications (GSM)-based protocol.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein transmitting the destination device identifying item further comprises transmitting the destination device identifying item as at least one of:

Assignees

• Mittal Vineet
• Koenig Michal J
• Rajan Rajeev D
• Gregory Kevin T
• Qualcomm Inc

Inventors

• Mittal Vineet
• Koenig Michal J
• Rajan Rajeev D
• Gregory Kevin T

Classifications

• H04W4/02 Primary

  Services making use of location information · CPC title

• G06Q30/02

  Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising · CPC title

• H04W4/029 Primary

  Location-based management or tracking services · CPC title

• G06Q50/10 Primary

  Services · CPC title

• G06F15/16

  Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs {(coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B)} · CPC title