Method and a system for responding to a request for access to an application service

• US 20060085202A1
• Filed: 12/23/2003
• Published: 04/20/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 01/03/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Anoto Group AB
• Original Assignee: Anoto Group AB
• Inventors: Holmgren, Helena, Sahlberg, Bjorn
• Application Number:
  US10/541,236
• Publication Number:
  US 20060085202A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/229
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/31 User authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/03545 Pens or stylus
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other groups of this subclass

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method and a server for responding to a request for access to an application service, which service is deployed in a system that associates specific areas of a position coded surface with corresponding application services. According to the invention, an enterprise paper look-up service E-PLS1 is provided which manages a confined set of enterprise application services E-AS1 associated with respective areas included by the overall position coded surface. When receiving a request that includes address information of such an area, the enterprise paper look-up service E-PLS checks if the area address is associated with a service that the E-PLS manages. If this is not the case, the request is routed to a second paper look-up service E-PLS2.

Claims

1. A method of responding to a request for access to an application service, the application service being deployed in a system that associates a specific area of a position coded surface with an application service by means of an area address, the method including:

providing a first enterprise paper look-up service which manages a confined set of one or more enterprise application services associated with respective area addresses;

receiving, from an originator, a request including an area address;

checking, if the area address is associated with an enterprise application service managed by the first enterprise paper look-up service, that the originator of the request has the right to access the enterprise application service, before enabling access to the service; and

routing, based on the area address, the request to a second paper look-up service if the area address is not associated with an enterprise application service managed by the first enterprise paper look-up service.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the routing step includes the step of selecting a second paper look-up service, among a plurality of paper look-up services, that is associated with the area address of the request.

3. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the selecting step is based on a step of matching the received area address with one of the area addresses which by the enterprise paper look-up service are associated with respective second paper look-up services.

4. The method as claimed in any one of claims 1-3, wherein the routing step includes the step of selecting a second paper look-up service that defines a default paper look-up service.

5. The method as claimed in any one of claims 1-4, including checking that the originator of the request has the right to cause routing of a request to the second paper look-up service, wherein said routing step only is completed if this right is confirmed.

6. The method as claimed in any one of claims 1-5, including:

receiving a response from the second paper look-up service;

extracting information related to the application service associated with the area address from the response; and

responding to the originator of the request by transferring said information to the originator.

7. The method as claimed in any one of claims 1-6, including determining that the originator is a digital device of the kind which is arranged to detect positions of the position coded surface, or a network connection unit in communication with such a digital device, which digital device is registered by the first enterprise paper look-up service.

8. The method as claimed in any one of claims 1-6, including determining that the originator is another enterprise paper look-up service.

9. The method as claimed in claim 6, wherein the information includes a network address designating the application service.

10. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the network address is designated by means of a Uniform Resource Locator.

11. The method as claimed in claim 6, wherein the information includes designations of mandatory data that the application service requires access to during its execution.

12. The method as claimed in any one of claims 1-11, wherein the second paper look-up service is another enterprise paper look-up service.

13. The method as claimed in any one of claims 1-11, wherein the second paper look-up service is a global paper look-up service providing world wide services to enterprise paper look-up services operated by various organisations, such as enterprises or government authorities.

14. The method as claimed in any one of claims 1-13, wherein the first paper look-up service together with the second paper look-up service is included in a hierarchy of paper look-up services.

15. The method as claimed in any one of claims 1-14, wherein the first enterprise paper look-up service performs the additional steps of:

requesting a global paper look-up service to provide any template updates; and

receiving a template update in response and extracting from the template update new management rules relating to at least one confined position coded surface area.

16. An enterprise paper look-up server for responding to a request for access to an application service, the application service being deployed in a system that associates a specific area of a position coded surface with an application service by means of an area address, the enterprise server including:

first storing means for storing associations between area addresses and respective enterprise application services defining a confined set of services managed by the enterprise server;

interface means for receiving, from an originator, a request including an area address;

processing means for checking, if the area address is associated with an enterprise application service managed by the enterprise paper look-up service itself, that the originator of the request has the right to access the enterprise application service, before enabling access to the service; and

routing means for routing, by means of the processing means and based on the area address, the request to a second paper look-up server if the area address is not associated with an enterprise application service managed by the enterprise paper look-up service itself.

17. The enterprise server as claimed in claim 16, which server includes second storing means for storing associations between area addresses and respective second paper look-up servers, and wherein the processing means is arranged for selecting a specific second paper look-up service which is associated with the area address of the request.

18. The enterprise server as claimed in claim 16 or 17, wherein the processing means is arranged to select a second paper look-up server that defines a default paper look-up server.

19. The enterprise server as claimed in any one of claims 16-18, wherein the processing means further is arranged for checking that the originator of the request has the right to cause routing of a request to the second paper look-up server, before said routing means completes the routing of the request.

20. The enterprise server as claimed in any one of claims 16-19, wherein said interface means further is arranged for receiving a response with information from the second paper look-up server and for responding to the originator of the request by transferring said information to the originator.

21. The enterprise server as claimed in any one of claims 16-20, wherein the processing means further is arranged for determining that the originator is a digital device of the kind which is arranged to detect positions of the position coded surface, or a network connection unit in communication with such a digital device, which digital device is registered at the enterprise paper look-up server.

22. The enterprise server as claimed in any one of claims 16-21, wherein the processing means further is arranged for determining that the originator is another enterprise paper look-up server.

23. The enterprise server as claimed in any one of claims 20-22, wherein the information include a network address designating the application service.

24. The enterprise server as claimed in claim 23, wherein the network address is designated by means of a Uniform Resource Locator.

25. The enterprise server as claimed in any one of claims 20-23, wherein the information include designations of mandatory data that the application service requires access to during its execution.

26. The enterprise server as claimed in any one of claims 16-25, wherein the second paper look-up server is another enterprise paper look-up server.

27. The enterprise server as claimed in any one of claims 16-25, wherein the second paper look-up server is a global paper look-up server providing world wide services to enterprise paper look-up servers operated by various organisations, such as enterprises or government authorities.

28. The enterprise server as claimed in any one of claims 16-27, which together with the second paper look-up server is included in a hierarchy of paper look-up servers.

29. The enterprise server as claimed in any one of claims 16-28, further including:

second interface means for requesting a global paper look-up service to provide any template updates and for receiving a template update in response thereto,

wherein said processing means is arranged for extracting from the template update new management rules relating to at least one confined position coded surface area.