US 2,013,132,854 · Filed 2013-01-23

The Patent That Lets You Control Your Phone Plan Like a Boss

Imagine if you could see all your phone plans in one place, mix and match features you actually want, group your family's devices together, and set who gets to change what. This patent covers the whole digital dashboard that makes managing mobile service plans way less painful than calling customer support.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a system that lets people view, select, and customize wireless service plans through a graphical user interface. What's protected here is the ability to create device groups, manage permissions across multiple devices, share service plan settings, and control communication services through application programming interfaces. Essentially, someone building a competitor's plan-management app would need to avoid this patent's specific methods for displaying options, handling group permissions, and connecting back-end systems to the user interface.

Why it matters

As wireless carriers moved from simple one-size-fits-all plans to complex, customizable options, the back-end systems managing those choices became valuable intellectual property. This patent covers the plumbing that lets subscribers actually understand and control what they're paying for—a core problem in an industry where customers often feel locked into confusing plans. Carriers and mobile management platforms use these kinds of patents to protect their competitive advantage in how they present and manage service options.

Real-world use

When you log into your carrier's app to switch between unlimited data plans, create a family group, or set parental controls on a kid's phone, you're interacting with the exact kind of interface and permission system this patent describes.

Original USPTO abstract

Disclosed herein are methods, systems, and apparatuses to enable subscribers of mobile wireless communication devices to view, research, select and customize service plans; to create and manage device groups, share and set permission controls for service plans among devices in device groups; to manage communication services through graphical user interfaces; to sponsor and promote service plans; and to design, manage, and control communication services through application programming interfaces.

Patent details

Publication number: US 2,013,132,854
Filing date: 2013-01-23
Grant date: Application — not yet granted
Assignee: Headwater Partners I Llc
Inventor(s): RALEIGH GREGORY G., TELLADO JOSE, GREEN JEFFREY, LAVINE JAMES, JAMES JUSTIN, NGUYEN LAURENT AN MINH, CARTER, III RUSSELL BERTRAND
CPC class: G06F3/0482

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