Boingo wins wireless patent covering the access of networks by a mobile device

Now this is meaty. It seems that this week is week of patents for mobile. Yesterday it was JumpTap and today its Boingo.

What is the patent?
No. 7,483,984, covering the method and apparatus for accessing networks by a mobile device. The patent advances the company’s client technology for detection, association and logging into wireless networks, on any device.

What does that mean?
In short – this is about finding the right network for a mobile device where there are more than one network and presenting the information in a clear and simple way to the user.

Is this important?
Good grief. I just think back to Mobile 2.0 last week and I remember Bango talking about how Wi-Fi was going to be huge and I think…. this is huge.

Boingo now has a patent on finding and presenting the ID and simple names of networks to users. Everyone has to do this and Boingo but is there a business model or license fee or partnership agreement? I mean it is a great patent but I am not sure what can be done with it to facilitate growth and cash.