Coalescing geo-fence events

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9820231-B2
Application number	US-201313918818-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 14, 2013
Priority date	Jun 14, 2013
Publication date	Nov 14, 2017
Grant date	Nov 14, 2017

Abstract

A device location is determined, and the location of an area of interest that is a geographic area referred to as a geo-fence is identified. Multiple geo-fences can be identified by the device, and different geo-fences can be associated with different programs on the device. An operating system of the device implements multiple different periods of operation for the device, including a conservation period during which certain programs are not typically scheduled to run, and an execution period during which such programs are typically scheduled to run. A system identifies geo-fence events, which occur when the device enters or exits the geo-fence. The system maintains a record of the geo-fence events for each of multiple geo-fences, and provides to a program selected ones of those geo-fence events at a time when the program is scheduled to run on the device during an execution period of the operating system.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
detecting when one or more geo-fence events occur for a computing device during a conservation period of an operating system during which certain programs are not scheduled to run;
maintaining a record of geo-fence events for each of multiple geo-fences;
collecting geo-fence events for each of the multiple geo-fences together for each of the certain programs;
waiting until a program associated with at least one of the multiple geo-fences is scheduled to run during an execution period of the operating system;
providing to the program, after the waiting, the collected geo-fence events for the program; and
deleting from the record of geo-fence events a particular geo-fence event based on a time period expiring.

2. A method as recited in claim 1 , the certain programs comprising applications other than operating system programs.

3. A method as recited in claim 1 , the providing comprising for each of the multiple geo-fences, providing only a most recent geo-fence exit event and/or a most recent geo-fence enter event.

4. A method as recited in claim 3 , the maintaining comprising maintaining a record of multiple geo-fence exit events and multiple geo-fence enter events for each of the multiple geo-fences.

5. A method as recited in claim 1 , the maintaining comprising recording the geo-fence events for a geo-fence regardless of whether the program associated with the geo-fence is running.

6. A method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising deleting one of the multiple geo-fences associated with the program without notifying the program to delete the one of the multiple geo-fences.

7. A method as recited in claim 1 , the record of geo-fence events including, for each geo-fence event, an identification of the geo-fence event and a timestamp of when the geo-fence event was detected.

8. A method as recited in claim 1 , the providing comprising providing collected geo-fence events to the program by coalescing one or more geo-fence events for multiple geo-fences associated with the program.

9. A method as recited in claim 1 , the providing comprising providing collected geo-fence events to the program only if one or more additional criteria associated with the geo-fence or the program are satisfied.

10. A method as recited in claim 9 , the additional criteria comprising network connectivity being available.

11. A computing device comprising:
one or more processors;
a data store to store geo-fence data for multiple geo-fences, the geo-fence data for a geo-fence including an indication of a program associated with the geo-fence; and
one or more computer-readable storage devices comprising computer-readable instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, implement:
a geo-fence event detection module to detect when one or more geo-fence events occur for the multiple geo-fences, including when one or more geo-fence events occur during a conservation period of an operating system during which certain programs are not scheduled to run;
a geo-fence event storage module to maintain a record of the detected one or more geo-fence events; and
a geo-fence event reporting module that waits to provide, to a program subsequently scheduled to run during an execution period of the operating system, an indication of one or more geo-fence events included in the record of the detected one or more geo-fence events until the operating system enters the execution period.

12. A computing device as recited in claim 11 , the certain programs comprising applications other than operating system programs.

13. A computing device as recited in claim 11 , the program being subsequently scheduled to run in a next execution period of the operating system.

14. A computing device as recited in claim 11 , wherein to provide the indication is to provide for each of the multiple geo-fences, only a most recent geo-fence exit event and/or geo-fence enter event.

15. A computing device as recited in claim 11 , wherein the record is a record of detected geo-fence events for a geo-fence regardless of whether the program associated with the geo-fence is running.

16. A computing device as recited in claim 11 , the record of geo-fence events including, for each geo-fence, an identification of the geo-fence event and a timestamp of when the geo-fence event was detected.

17. A computing device as recited in claim 11 , wherein the indication is an indication of one or more geo-fence events provided to the program by coalescing one or more geo-fence events for multiple geo-fences.

18. A computing device as recited in claim 11 , wherein the indication is an indication of a geo-fence event provided to the program only if one or more additional criteria associated with the geo-fence are satisfied.

19. A computing device as recited in claim 11 , further comprising deleting from the record of geo-fence events a particular geo-fence event based on the program associated with the geo-fence being uninstalled from the computing device.

20. A method comprising:
detecting when one or more geo-fence events occur for a computing device during a conservation period of an operating system during which certain programs are not scheduled to run;
maintaining a record of geo-fence events for each of multiple geo-fences, including maintaining a record of multiple geo-fence exit events and multiple geo-fence enter events for each of the multiple geo-fences, the record of geo-fence events including for each geo-fence event an identification of the geo-fence event and a timestamp of when the geo-fence event was detected; and
providing, to a program associated with two or more of the multiple geo-fences when the program is scheduled to run during an execution period of the operating system, an indication of a most recent geo-fence exit event and geo-fence enter event for each of the two or more of the multiple geo-fences from the record of geo-fence events responsive to the program running during the execution period of the operating system.

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Gorgenyi Frank
• Estrada Alva Daniel
• Gonzalez Fernando
• Saha Sanjib

Classifications

• H04W52/0251 Primary

  using monitoring of local events, e.g. events related to user activity · CPC title

• H04W4/022

  with dynamic range variability · CPC title

• H04W4/021

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

• Y02D30/70

  in wireless communication networks · CPC title