Boingo Awarded a Patent For Hotspot Access

Boingo has scored a patent for accessing a Wi-Fi hotspot by a mobile device. The patent, no. 7,483,984, was issued in January, but Boingo only started talking about it recently. The patent application was filed in December 2002. According to the company, the methods covered by the patent include: "...accessing wireless carrier networks by mobile computing devices, where a client software application hosted by the device accesses carrier networks using wireless access points. For example, when a computer — or netbook, smartphone or any other Wi-Fi-enabled device — is in a location where there are multiple signals, the patented technology looks at each signal and alerts the user which signal will work, showing the signal as an understandable name and ID for the user.The patent covers all wireless technologies and spectrums, as well as any mobile device that access wireless hotspots." The company is not saying anything about whether or how they will attempt to wield this patent.

Comments

Re:The key element of the claims

[radtea]

dogg, its /. it aint exactly the place to go for an honest summary of a patent.

What he said. It's tiresome that /. continues to cite completely irrelevant information in patent story summaries. I don't know whether the editors are simply too stupid to understand the very simple fact that nothing but the claims matter or if they are deliberately posting false and misleading summaries to boost readership outrage.

If the latter, /. risks becoming just another boingboing, with its carefully crafted culture of Two Minutes Hate.