Patent troll says it owns GPS, sues Foursquare

Re:Patent troll says it owns GPS, sues Foursquare by rprasad on Friday July 27, 2012 @02:57PM (#4303029)

Guys, I clearly said the article does not claim ownership of GPS. It can't, because the federal government was using GPS for that for a decade or two before the system was opened up to the private.

What is covered by the patent is other aspects of location tracking, specifically at issue here, the use of a central database to store detected locations and to make use of detected locations for other purposes. In this context, the patent claims any form of geo-location technology which is used to contribute to that database.

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Re:Patent troll says it owns GPS, sues Foursquare by DigitalJack on Friday July 27, 2012 @06:17PM (#4303840)

Well, the first patent most certainly does use GPS for location. The server is used to retrieve information about that location.

Claims 1. A method, using a personal computer device having a GPS receiver, of populating a database comprising:

determining, by the personal computer device using its GPS receiver, a location at which the personal computer device becomes relatively immobile;

(rest of claim 1 ommited)

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