Patent ID: 8332087

Claim:
A system for collecting and distributing maritime data, comprising: a communications system on-board a water-faring vessel, the communications system configured to transmit a signal representative of (i) a current location of the vessel or (ii) an expected location of the vessel; and a server in communication with a computer network that includes a plurality of databases, wherein each of the plurality of databases includes at least one zone of concern data that is continually updated, wherein the zone of concern data corresponds to occurrences associated with a zone of concern, wherein: the server is configured to: receive the signal from the communications system; receive at a first time from the plurality of databases zone of concern data based upon the received signal; store the zone of concern data received at the first time; transmit the zone of concern data received at the first time to the communications system; receive at a second time from the plurality of databases zone of concern data based upon the received signal; store the zone of concern data received at the second time; compare the zone of concern data received at the first time to the zone of concern data received at the second time; and transmit the zone of concern data received at the second time to the communications system if the zone of concern data received at the second time is different from the zone of concern data received at the first time.