Patent ID: 8745201

Claim:
A method of operating a communications device, the method comprising: assigning a received wireless discovery signal to at least one alert category based on at least one of a time at which the wireless discovery signal is received or a location of the communications device; determining an information type indicator of a plurality of information type indicators for the received wireless discovery signal, the plurality of information type indicators including a predetermined information type indicator and an unknown information type indicator, the predetermined information type indicator being associated with zero or more alert categories and the unknown information type indicator being associated with no alert categories; determining whether the received wireless discovery signal matches with an alert category associated with the determined information type indicator; determining whether to generate an alert for the received wireless discovery signal based on the at least one alert category and based on wireless discovery signal statistical information associated with the received wireless discovery signal; and refraining from generating the alert upon a determination not to generate the alert, wherein the determining if the alert is to be generated for the received wireless discovery signal comprises determining to generate the alert when the received wireless discovery signal matches with an alert category associated with the determined information type indicator and determining not to generate the alert when the received wireless discovery signal does not match with an alert category associated with the determined information type indicator.