Patent ID: 8787936

Claim:
A method of determining whether a controllable mobile device is within a vehicle when it is determined that the vehicle is in operation, comprising the steps: determining at least one of a location of the vehicle and one or more characteristics of the vehicle indicative of an operational state of the vehicle and an identity of the vehicle; determining at least one of a location of the controllable mobile device and one or more characteristics of the controllable mobile device, wherein the controllable mobile device is associated with the vehicle; and determining whether the controllable mobile device is within the vehicle with computation equipment that uses the one or more characteristics of the vehicle indicative of an operational state of the vehicle and the one or more characteristics of the controllable mobile device, wherein the one or more characteristics of the vehicle indicative of an-operational state of the vehicle comprises a velocity of the vehicle, wherein the one or more characteristics of the controllable mobile device comprises a velocity of the controllable mobile device, and wherein the determining whether the controllable mobile device is within the vehicle step comprises comparing the velocity of the vehicle and the velocity of the controllable mobile device, when the velocity of the vehicle and the velocity of the controllable mobile device are within a predetermined range of each other, the controllable mobile device is determined to be in the vehicle.