Patent ID: 8599812

Claim:
A method performed by a mobile device for obtaining information regarding access points in a wireless network, the method comprising: transmitting to a location server a request for information regarding access points; in response to the request, receiving encoded access point identification data for a plurality of access points corresponding to the request, the encoded access point identification data comprising: a reference identifier comprising a number of groups of bits, an encoding mask for an access point identifier, wherein the encoding mask identifies groups of bits for the access point identifier that are identical to corresponding groups of bits for the reference identifier, groups of bits of the access point identifier that are not identical to corresponding groups of bits for the reference identifier; decoding at least some of the encoded access point identification data; receiving, in response to the request, encoded locations for the plurality of access points; decoding at least some of the encoded locations, wherein: the request specifies a region; the plurality of access points is located within the region; and the encoded locations comprise encoded sets of coordinate values, wherein a respective encoded set of coordinate values comprises: a single sequence of most significant bits common to every value of the set; and sequences of least significant bits for respective values of the set, wherein the least significant bits are not common to every value of the set; and decoding the encoded locations comprises, for a respective coordinate value, concatenating the single sequence of most significant bits and a respective sequence of least significant bits.