Geofence Information Delivery Systems and Methods

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016357782-A1
Application number	US-201514953485-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Nov 30, 2015
Priority date	Jun 2, 2015
Publication date	Dec 8, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

The present invention is directed to methods and systems for querying a database of geofences. A method for querying a database of geofences in the present invention includes generating at a device a first request comprising an Internet Protocol address, converting the IP address to a geographic location, identifying one or more geofences associated with the geographic location, and creating a first response to the first request wherein the first response comprises information describing the one or more geofences.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1 . A method for delivering geofence information by one or more processors, comprising:
generating at a device a first request comprising an Internet Protocol (IP) address; converting the IP address to a geographic location; identifying one or more geofences associated with the geographic location; and creating a first response to the first request wherein the first response comprises information describing the one or more geofences.

2 . The method of claim 1 wherein the first request is a Domain Name System (DNS) query and wherein the first response is a DNS response.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein converting the IP address to the geographic location comprises querying a geofence database with data stored thereon for IP addresses, anchor points for geofences, and coordinate points for geofences.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the information describing the one or more geofences comprises an indication whether the one or more geofences is verified or unverified, a class of the one or more geofences, an entitlement of the one or more geofences, a time-to-live value, or a context summary of the one or more geofences.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first request, converting the IP address to the geographic location, the IP address, or the information describing the one or more geofences is displayed via a Graphical User Interface (GUI), wherein the GUI comprises an interactive map showing boundaries of the one or more geofences.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein geographic location includes at least one anchor point for each of the one or more geofences, wherein the at least one anchor point is at least one physical address for each of the one or more geofences in a geofence database.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the IP address is an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) address.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the IP address is associated with an Internet connection, wherein the device is located within a connection range of the Internet connection when the step of generating at the device the first request comprising the IP address is performed.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the IP address is associated with a WiFi connection, wherein the device is located within a predetermined proximity of at least one WiFi access point associated with the WiFi connection when the step of generating at the device the first request comprising the IP address is performed.

10 . A system for a geofence delivery network, comprising:
at least one geofence database; and at least one server;
wherein the at least one server comprises a conversion engine and a search engine;
wherein the conversion engine is configured to convert between an IP address and a coordinate point of a geographic location; and
wherein the search engine is configured to receive an inquiry via a network and query the at least one geofence database to identify one or more geofences associated with the coordinate point.

11 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the IP address is an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) address.

12 . The system of claim 10 , further comprising a Graphical User Interface (GUI), wherein the GUI is configured to receive a request and display a response.

13 . The system of claim 12 , wherein the request is a Domain Name System (DNS) query comprising an IP address.

14 . The system of claim 12 , wherein the response comprises information describing the one or more geofences, wherein the information describing the one or more geofences comprises at least one of an indication whether each of the one or more geofences is verified or unverified, a class of the one or more geofences, an entitlement of the one or more geofences, a time-to-live value, and a context summary of the one or more geofences.

15 . The system of claim 12 , wherein the GUI comprises an interactive map showing boundaries of the one or more geofences.

16 . The system of claim 12 , further comprising an application program communicating with the at least one server and the at least one geofence database via the network, wherein the application program is installed in at least one mobile computing device.

17 . A method for delivering geofence information by one or more processors, comprising:
receiving and processing a first request from at least one device over a network, the first request comprising an IP address associated with an Internet connection available to the at least one device; converting the IP address to a geographic location, and generating at least one anchor point corresponding to the geographic location; identifying one or more geofences corresponding to the at least one anchor point; and creating a response to the first request wherein the response comprises information describing the one or more geofences.

18 . The method of claim 17 , wherein the at least one anchor point is at least one point on the surface of the Earth defined by a coordinate system with a distance between points of the coordinate system being between about 0.5 microns and about 2 centimeters.

19 . The method of claim 18 , wherein the IP address is a unique IP address corresponding to one of the at least one anchor point.

20 . The method of claim 17 , wherein the response includes a condition for the at least one device accessing the Internet connection.

Assignees

• Geofrenzy Inc

Inventors

• Jones Benjamin T

Classifications

• G06F16/258

  Data format conversion from or to a database · CPC title

• G06F16/29 Primary

  Geographical information databases · CPC title

• H04W4/021

  Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences · CPC title

• G06F17/30569

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30241 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic