Patent ID: 7696923

Claim:
A system for enabling a wireless computing device to determine its position when communicating with one or more wireless beacons having fixed physical locations, comprising: a server comprising a database of identification and positional information about wireless beacons having fixed physical locations; and a wireless computing device arranged to wirelessly communicate using the Internet with said server, said wireless computing device being arranged to directly receive a transmission from at least one wireless beacon and generate identification information about said at least one wireless beacon, the identification information being generated by said wireless computing device based on the transmission from said at least one wireless beacon which is received by said wireless computing device, said wireless computing device being arranged to generate a request for a determination of its position and send the position determination request with the generated identification information about said at least one wireless beacon to said server, the generated and sent identification information being the information previously generated by said wireless computing device based on an earlier transmission from said at least one wireless beacon which is received by said wireless computing device, said server being arranged to receive the position determination request and the generated information about said at least one wireless beacon sent by said wireless computing device and determine the geographic position of said wireless computing device from the identification information generated and sent by said wireless computing device and the identification and positional information about wireless beacons contained in said database of said server, said server being arranged to undertake an action based on the determined geographic position of said wireless computing device.