Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Zoned or cellular telephone system
Reexamination Certificate
2000-07-26
2004-11-23
Corsaro, Nick (Department: 2684)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Zoned or cellular telephone system
C455S041200, C455S414200, C455S456200, C455S414300
Reexamination Certificate
active
06823188
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Presently available technology supports position location functions, enabling mobile equipment to accurately indicate geographic positions to respective users, and even guide such users to preset destinations. Other available technology (exemplified for instance by systems which communicate with cellular radio-telephones and operate to automatically link the latter devices with different signal relay towers as such devices move between areas served by such towers) can be used to derive position information from cellular devices (e.g. for use in “911” emergencies).
Industries providing travel-related services—exemplified by automobile rental enterprises, airlines, railroads, buses, cruise ship operators, hotels, food caterers, etc.—increasingly seek to attract customers with special value-added services. Typically such service are given names associated with valuable objects (platinum, gold, diamonds, etc.). For example, one car rental company offers a “gold card” service whereby customers entitled to the service, while being transported from an airport to a nearby company terminal, identify themselves to the bus driver who in turn notifies representatives at the terminal. As a result, rental cars assigned to passengers so identified are made immediately available at the terminal, eliminating need for such customers to enter the branch office, wait for a representative to serve them, complete forms, etc. A similar service, offered by hotels, provides guests with transportation from nearby airports to respective hotels when guests telephone to announce their arrival at the airport.
A common aspect of the foregoing services is that their implementation usually requires overt actions by guests (or customers or clients, etc.) upon arrival at a travel terminal close to a place of business offering the service. An aspect of presently known services of this character is that the required overt acts usually involve oral communication, between the arriving guest and a representative of the business offering the service, to identify the arriving guest, and may even require the guest to locate and display a card indicating their entitlement to the service.
In the rush of travel, it is frequently difficult and/or awkward for guests to carry out such acts of identification. Furthermore, this difficulty or awkwardness may be compounded if the communications and acts need to be carried out in a particular place (e.g. at a telephone in an air terminal, or on a shuttle van, etc.) where the act may be impeded by crowds of travelers or vehicle motion or both.
Accordingly, a need is perceived for providing such service on an automated basis which effectively would relieve guests/clients (hereafter “users”) of burdens of communicating orally with representatives of businesses providing the service, and perhaps more importantly is conditioned upon automated telecommunication functions which can be programmed to occur automatically when users reach a pre-arranged distance of proximity to a destination associated with the service. Thus, for instance, services associated with expediting baggage check-in at airports can be triggered into effect as users of the service enter airport grounds, services expediting delivery of rental cars to users arriving at an airport can be triggered into effect as users arrive, services for expediting transportation from air terminals to hotels can be triggered into effect when users arrive at the air terminals, services to expedite take-out catering functions can be activated when a user is within a few blocks of a respective catering service site, etc.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with this invention, users of presently contemplated services employ state of art programmable portable instruments that are adapted to be programmable to be effectively aware of their locations and to begin automatic transmissions of pre-arranged signals (typically, in a wireless mode), to business sites providing the services, as respective users reach a predetermined distance of proximity to such sites. The pre-arranged signals include signals identifying respective users.
Preferably, programming of such instruments is effected before or during a trip to a destination offering the service. Such programming is implemented, through wireless or other data communication networks, either by businesses providing the services or third parties operating as agents of these businesses. Furthermore, the pre-arranged, signal transmissions preferably are in a standardized form enabling different types of businesses (requiring different proximity factors for beginning activation of their services and different actions for implementing respective services) to use common reception equipment to: a) properly identify authorized users of their services, and b) begin activating respective services exclusively for such users. Furthermore, such programming preferably is sufficiently flexible to allow different businesses to establish different proximity conditions for triggering user-identifying transmissions.
Although portable instruments that are programmable to be effectively aware of their locations are presently state of the art, a distinction of the present invention is that its instruments are programmable by diverse entities or persons to perform presently contemplated signaling functions as users of the instruments reach predetermined proximity to sites at which services and/or functions associated with their programming are to be completed.
Instruments generally “aware” of their geographic locations (either by communications with earth satellites or with cellular relay stations) are presently termed “pervasive location aware/communicating devices” (abbreviated as “PLAD's”). Instruments that are specifically adaptable to receiving programming associated with presently contemplated services, and to perform presently contemplated signal transmissions conditioned on proximity factors, are viewed presently as a new class of PLAD's.
As presently contemplated, a common aspect of this new class is that its PLAD's are subject to being dynamically programmed, before or during a visit to a specific site at which a service or other function is to be performed, to: a) detect when the PLAD (and its user) are within a predetermined range of proximity to the site; and b) upon such detection, initiate transmission of information enabling apparatus receiving the transmissions to verify that they are from a user of a pre-scheduled service and initiate actions appropriate for implementing the service in synchronism with the user's projected time of arrival at the site. It is contemplated further that PLAD's in this class will be adaptable to receive transmissions from or associated with proximate sites, in order to support implementation of applications which require bidirectional transmissions; applications requiring verification that the respective PLAD is in possession of an authorized user.
Programming of a PLAD instrument in this new class should be simple, flexible and dynamically variable so as to allow e.g. for supporting triggering of several different proximity-associated service applications in the course of a single trip; for instance, triggering of a first application en route to a departure airport (e.g. enabling the device user to obtain a seat assignment on a scheduled flight, and possibly to-schedule baggage handling automatically, while en route to that airport), and triggering of a second service application upon arrival at a destination airport (e.g. enabling the same user/traveler to have a shuttle van automatically dispatched to the airport from either a car rental service or a pre-booked hotel at that time).
Presently contemplated PLAD's also can be used to set up proximity-related control functions. For example, an incoming guest's proximity notification to a hotel can be used to initiate a room thermostat adjustment, so that the room temperature is comfortable when the guest arrives but can be efficiently held at a less com
Corsaro Nick
International Business Machines - Corporation
Lieber Robert
Orgad Edan
Tomlin Richard A.
LandOfFree
Automated proximity notification does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Automated proximity notification, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Automated proximity notification will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3342160