Geofence information delivery systems and methods

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9906609-B2
Application number	US-201514745951-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 22, 2015
Priority date	Jun 2, 2015
Publication date	Feb 27, 2018
Grant date	Feb 27, 2018

Abstract

The present invention is directed to methods and systems for querying a database of geofences, with each geofence in the database being associated with a plurality of IP addresses, preferably IPv6 addresses, and each IP address corresponding to a specific geographic coordinate. The method and system convert location coordinates to IP addresses and determine whether a location anchor point is associated with a geofence.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for delivering geofence information by one or more processors, comprising the steps of:
generating at a device a first request comprising a coordinate point of a geographic location associated with the device;
converting the coordinate point of the geographic location to an Internet Protocol (IP) address and matching the IP address to at least one anchor point, wherein a single anchor point of the at least one anchor point defines a geofence, is a unique identifier of the geofence, is located on or within a geofence boundary, and is a geofence address;
identifying one or more geofences associated with the at least one anchor point; and
creating a first response to the first request wherein the first response comprises information describing the one or more identified geofences, including the at least one anchor point and a plurality of additional IP addresses associated with the one or more geofences, wherein the plurality of additional IP addresses correspond to fence points for the one or more geofences;
wherein the first request is a Domain Name System (DNS) query and wherein the first response is a DNS response; and
wherein the IP address, the at least one anchor point, and the plurality of additional IP addresses are Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) addresses.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
generating at the device a second request; and
creating a second response to the second request wherein the second response comprises information describing the one or more identified geofences.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of converting the coordinate point of the geographic location to the IP address comprises using the coordinate point of the geographic location as a database key and querying a geofence database with data stored thereon for IPv6 addresses, anchor points for geofences, and coordinate points of geographic locations.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of identifying one or more geofences comprises querying a geofence database, wherein the geofence database stores information describing each geofence, including at least one geographic designator, wherein the at least one geographic designator is the coordinate point of the geographic location or a set of coordinate points of the geographic location.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the information describing the one or more identified geofences comprises at least one of 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, and a context summary of the one or more geofences.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first request, the step of converting the coordinate point of the geographic location to the IP address, the IP address, the at least one anchor point, and/or the information describing the one or more identified geofences are displayed via a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the GUI comprises an interactive map showing boundaries of the one or more identified geofences.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the interactive map is a 2-dimensional (2D) map.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the response to the first request further comprises notification messages and/or changes to a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more identified geofences are polygonal in shape.

11. A system of 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 a coordinate point of a geographic location and an IP address used for matching the IP address to at least one anchor point, wherein a single anchor point of the at least one anchor point defines a geofence, is a unique identifier of the geofence, is located on or within a geofence boundary, and is an address of the geofence;
wherein the search engine is configured to receive a Domain Name System (DNS) query via a network and query the at least one geofence database to identify one or more geofences associated with the at least one anchor point;
wherein the search engine is further configured to create a response to the DNS query wherein the response comprises information describing the one or more identified geofences, including the at least one anchor point and a plurality of additional IP addresses associated with the one or more geofences, wherein the plurality of additional IP addresses correspond to fence points for the one or more geofences; and
wherein the IP address and the at least one anchor point are Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) addresses.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the at least one server and the at least one geofence database are centralized or decentralized.

13. The system of claim 11 , further comprising a Graphical User Interface (GUI), wherein the GUI is configured to receive the DNS query and display the response.

14. The system of claim 11 , wherein the response further comprises information describing one or more identified geofences, wherein the information describing the one or more identified geofences comprises at least one of an indication whether the geofence is verified or unverified, a class of the one or more identified geofences, an entitlement of the one or more identified geofences, a time-to-live value, and a context summary of the one or more identified geofences.

15. The system of claim 13 , wherein the GUI comprises an interactive map showing boundaries of the one or more identified geofences.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the interactive map is a 2-dimensional (2D) map.

17. The system of claim 13 , 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 on at least one mobile computing device.

18. A method for delivering geofence information by one or more processors, comprising the steps of:
establishing a connection to at least one mobile computing device;
receiving and processing a first request from the at least one mobile computing device over a network, the first request comprising a coordinate point of a geographic location associated with the at least one mobile computing device;
converting the coordinate point of the geographic location to an Internet Protocol (IP) address and matching the IP address to at least one anchor point through a database using the coordinate point of the geographic location as a database key, wherein a single anchor point of the at least one anchor point defines a geofence, is a unique identifier of the geofence, is located on or within a geofence boundary, and is an address of the geofence;
identifying one or more geofences corresponding to the at least one anchor point associated with the coordinate point of the geographic location;
creating a response to the first request wherein the response to the first request comprises information describing the one or more geofences identified, including the at least one anchor point and a plurality of additional IP addresses associated with the one or more geofences, wherein the plurality of additional IP addresses correspond to fence points for the one or more geofences;
wherein the response to the first request corresponds to a Region of Interest (ROI);
wherein the information describing the one or more geofences identif

Assignees

• Jones Benjamin T
• Geofrenzy Inc

Inventors

• Jones Benjamin T

Classifications

• G06F2221/2111

  Location-sensitive, e.g. geographical location, GPS · CPC title

• H04L12/6418

  Hybrid transport · CPC title

• G06F21/604 Primary

  Tools and structures for managing or administering access control systems · CPC title

• G06F16/29

  Geographical information databases · CPC title

• H04L12/2816

  Controlling appliance services of a home automation network by calling their functionalities (arrangements in telecontrol or telemetry systems for selectively calling a substation from a main station; in which substation desired apparatus is selected for applying a control signal thereto or for obtaining measured values therefrom H04Q9/00) · CPC title