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| United States Patent Application | 20120110568 |
| Kind Code | A1 |
| Abel; Miller T. ;   et al. | May 3, 2012 |
Viral application distribution facilitates distribution of an application among users and increases likelihood of downloading the application by the users. A first device may receive information of an application from a second device through a short-range communication channel. The information may comprise identification information of the application without any personally identifiable information of the second device to protect privacy of a user of the second device. A version of the application that is compatible with the first device is determined by searching a catalog using the identification information of the application. The compatible version of the application may then be downloaded or obtained by the first device. Location-based viral distribution may also be performed between devices that visit a location, even at different times.
| Inventors: | Abel; Miller T.; (Mercer Island, WA) ; Futty; Joseph; (Sammamish, WA) ; Lau; James Kai Yu; (Bellevue, WA) ; Guday; Shai; (Redmond, WA) ; Yao; Richard Yuqi; (Bellevue, WA) |
| Assignee: |
Microsoft Corporation Redmond WA |
| Family ID: | 45998109 |
| Appl. No.: | 12/916374 |
| Filed: | October 29, 2010 |
| Current U.S. Class: | 717/178 |
| Current CPC Class: | G06F 8/61 20130101 |
| Class at Publication: | 717/178 |
| International Class: | G06F 9/445 20060101 G06F009/445 |