Patent ID: 6963748

Claim:
An apparatus for locating a mobile device, comprising an application programming interface (API), executed by a computer, for providing a plurality of simplified procedures that allow an application program executed by the computer to locate the mobile device, wherein: (a) the application program invokes the simplified procedures of the API; and (b) the invoked procedures obtain: (i) a location of the mobile device given an identification of the mobile device, wherein: (1) the invoked procedures are configured to interact with specifics for two or more mobile positioning servers for carriers of two or more mobile devices; and (2) the invoked procedures interact with two or more different methods of identifying the mobile devices as required by the different carriers of the mobile devices, and wherein a new different method for identifying the mobile devices may be dynamically deployed and used by the invoked procedures without deploying a new API or new application program; (ii) a description of a spatial reference system associated with the location.