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AN OVERBROAD PATENT ON Managing applications on mobile devices - This patent seeks to patent the idea of...monitoring and controlling an application on a mobile device! 10 minutes of your time can help narrow US patent applications before they become patents. Follow @askpatents on twitter to help.

This patent, US 8,271,057, described as

Condition-based activation, shut-down and management of applications of mobile devices

seems to describe many applications that run on a mobile device and respond to services the operating system provides (like location services).

Priority Date: Seeking Prior Art which predates Mar 16, 2009

Claim 1

  1. A method comprising:

    • based on one or more collected information items, Determining whether or not a condition related to a mobile device is true; and

    • Controlling a monitored application of the mobile device in response to the determination and according to usage patterns of the monitored application to perform at least one of:

      • activating the monitored application;
      • shutting down the monitored application;
      • activating a feature of the monitored application;
      • deactivating a feature of the monitored application; and
      • switching the monitored application from a first mode of operation to a second, different, mode of operation.
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  • Hi, AskPatents is an online service in Q&A format where users help find prior art on US Patent Applications and US Patents and ask questions about the US Patent process. If this is a prior art request please see meta.patents.stackexchange.com/a/146/1767 and whatever detail you can about the claims in question Sorry for any confusion.
    – Micah Siegel
    Dec 23, 2013 at 4:47
  • The first thing that comes to mind is push notification? Receiving an alert to your device ID (collected item), is the application open? No? Launch it? Perform XYZ action. I don't know if you can shut down the app via a notification unless the programmer points a command to exit the application if receiving that token.
    – Robert Tesla III
    Dec 23, 2013 at 6:10
  • There goes text messaging as well. When your device receives a text message, it activates the monitored text messaging app, and then performs an action. Claim 1 is dangerous. I will pick this apart and provide some prior art to it.
    – Robert Tesla III
    Dec 23, 2013 at 6:19

1 Answer 1

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http://www.google.ca/patents/US8281169 is even broader and has a priority date of 27 Aug 2008. Remove mobile and it would describe just about any OS with the ability to shut down or change priorities of running programs.

Is moving functionality to a mobile device (laptop, phone, gps, e-book reader etc.) enough to warrant a new patent on industry best practices?

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