Enhanced system for controlling service interaction and for providing blending of services

• US 20070201665A1
• Filed: 09/20/2005
• Published: 08/30/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/12/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: WSOU Investments, LLC (WSOU Holdings, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Kocan, Kristin, Roome, William
• Granted Patent: US 8,233,411 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/201.20
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1016 IP multimedia subsystem [IMS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1063 Application servers providing network services systems providing special services to telephonic subscribers H04M3/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42 Systems providing special services or facilities to subscribers specially adapted for wireless communication networks H04W4/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4217 Managing service interactions
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42365 Presence services providing information on the willingness to communicate or the ability to communicate in terms of media capability or network connectivity
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/465 Arrangements for simultaneously calling a number of substations until an answer is obtained
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/006 Networks other than PSTN/ISDN providing telephone service, e.g. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) , including next generation networks with a packet-switched transport layer H04L65/00 takes precedence; aspects not specific to the type of network H04M3/00; special services in those networks H04M3/42

Abstract

A service broker system is presented for mediating events or messages to be sent to or received from a plurality of applications to control service interaction and to provide service blending in a communications system. The service broker system includes steplet functional components that determine a desired mediation for feature interaction or service blending associated with an event or message, along with a message manager component with a dispatcher for the steplet functional components, where the message manager creates and maintains a unique message object for a received request message. A user and end point data manager component is provided to obtain user data and endpoint data and to bind attribute data to a user ID associated with a current service session, and a session context component for binding attribute data to session ID associated with the current service session. In one embodiment, the system includes two or more message manager components individually associated with a different message type.

Claims

1. A service broker system for mediating events or messages to be sent to or received from a plurality of applications to control service interaction and to provide service blending in a communications system that supports service interaction/blending for services that include communication services and web services, the service broker system comprising:

a plurality of steplet functional components individually operable to designate another steplet functional component to execute as a successor to itself, at least one of the steplet functional components including logic for determining a desired mediation;

means for sharing information related to individual events or message between the steplet functional components; and

means for receiving the events or messages, associating the contents of the events or messages with the information sharing means, and designating which steplet functional component will execute initially for each event or message.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the steplet functional components are constructed, at least partially, using software.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the operating environment of the steplet functional components supports the ability to add new steplet functional components to the system while it is operational.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the steplet functional components support the addition of new software to add to the logic or add interfaces to new applications.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein the operating environment of the steplet functional components provides thread resources and wherein a means is provided to wait while releasing the thread resources.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the events or messages are Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) messages.

7. The system of claim 2, wherein the events or messages are Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) messages.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a means for sharing information, which is related to arbitrary session entities that are created and designated by the steplet functional components.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the means for receiving the events or messages comprises a message manager component operable in response to one or more events or incoming messages, the message manager component comprising a dispatcher for the steplet functional components, wherein the message manager component creates and maintains a unique message object for a received request message, the message object comprising information bound to the message including a list of steplet functional components for execution and any desired attributes.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the means for receiving the events or messages comprises a plurality of message manager components individually operable in response to one or more events or incoming messages, the message manager components individually comprising a dispatcher for the steplet functional components, wherein the message manager component creates and maintains a unique message object for a received request message, the message object comprising information bound to the message including a list of steplet functional components for execution and any desired attributes

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the means for sharing information between the steplet functional components comprises a message object associated with a received request message, the message object comprising information bound to the message including a list of steplet functional components for execution and any desired attributes.

12. A service broker system for mediating events or messages to be sent to or received from a plurality of applications to control service interaction and to provide service blending in a communications system, the service broker system comprising:

a plurality of steplet functional components individually operable to designate another steplet functional component to execute as a successor to itself, at least one of the steplet functional components including logic for determining a desired mediation for feature interaction or service blending associated with an event or message;

a message manager component operable in response to one or more events or incoming messages, the message manager component comprising a dispatcher for the steplet functional components, wherein the message manager component creates and maintains a unique message object for a received request message, the message object comprising information bound to the message including a list of steplet functional components for execution and any desired attributes;

a message set including a list of current message objects;

a user and end point data manager component operable to obtain user data and endpoint data and to bind attribute data to a user ID associated with a current service session; and

a session context component for binding attribute data to session ID associated with the current service session.

13. The system of claim 12, comprising a plurality of message manager components individually associated with a different message type.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the plurality of message manager components comprises:

a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) message manager component operable in response to incoming SIP messages; and

a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) message manager component operable in response to incoming HTTP messages.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the plurality of message manager components comprises a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) message manager component operable in response to incoming SIP messages.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the plurality of message manager components comprises a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) message manager component operable in response to incoming HTTP messages.

17. The system of claim 12, wherein the operating environment of the steplet functional components supports the ability to add new steplet functional components to the system while it is operational.

18. The system of claim 12, wherein the steplet functional components support the addition of new software to add to the logic or add interfaces to new applications.

19. The system of claim 12, wherein an operating environment of the steplet functional components provides thread resources and wherein a means is provided to wait while releasing the thread resources.

20. The system of claim 12, further comprising a means for sharing information, which is related to arbitrary session entities that are created and designated by the steplet functional components.

21. The system of claim 12, further comprising means for sharing information by an external parameter, and means for searching message objects the external parameter.