Sharing Access to Content Items Using Group Information and Item Information

• US 20080154903A1
• Filed: 12/21/2006
• Published: 06/26/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Palm, Inc. (TCL Technology Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Haitani, Robert Yuji, Crowley, Matthew William
• Granted Patent: US 7,617,220 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/9
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/182 Distributed file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/104 Grouping of entities

Abstract

A user can share media content with others by defining one or more groups, where each group includes members who may access a set of user'"'"'s content item on the online service or on user'"'"'s local device. Item information is generated for content items to be shared and indicates where the content item can be accessed. The item information is provided to the members of the group that was selected to share the content item. The user can conveniently configure or update the group to share the user'"'"'s content items. The content items to be shared can be located on an online service or on the user'"'"'s local device.

Claims

1. A method for sharing a user'"'"'s content items, the method comprising:

generating group information that defines one or more groups, each group including one or more members;

for one or more of the groups, associating the group with item information that allows a set of content items to be accessed by members of the group; and

providing the item information associated with one of the groups to a member of the group to allow the member to access the content items associated with the group.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the item information comprises:

sending the group information to a remote server; and

sending the item information to the remote server, wherein the remote server is configured to enable the members of the group associated with the item information to access the corresponding content items.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the remote server is configured to obtain the content items associated with received item information from an online service using the item information, and further configured to provide the content items to members of the group associated with the item information.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the method further includes

updating the group information;

and

sending the updated group information to the remote server for storing it in the remote server.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the item information comprises sending the item information to one or more members of the group associated with the item information.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the item information is sent via peer-to-peer communication between the user and the members.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the item information includes source information that indicates where one or more of the content items can be obtained.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the item information includes authentication information associated with an account of the user that provides access to the user'"'"'s content items on an online service.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the group information for a particular group comprises:

a unique member identifier for each member in the group; and

a list of shared content items to which the item information associated with the group allows access by members of the group.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further includes editing the shared content items by the members of the group.

11. A computer program product comprising a computer readable medium structured to store instructions executable by a processor, the instructions, when executed cause the processor to:

generate group information that defines one or more groups, each group including one or more members;

for one or more of the groups, associate the group with item information that allows a set of content items to be accessed by members of the group; and

provide the item information associated with one of the groups to a member of the group to allow the member to access the content items associated with the group.

12. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the instructions, causing the processor to synchronize the group information causes the processor to:

send the group information to a remote server; and

send the item information to the remote server, wherein the remote server is configured to enable the members of the group associated with the item information to access the corresponding content items.

13. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the instructions further causes the processor to:

update the group information; and

send the updated group information to the remote server for storing it in the remote server.

14. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the instructions, causing the processor to send the item information causes the processor to send the item information sent via peer-to-peer communication between the user and the members

15. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the item information includes authentication information associated with an account of the user that provides access to the user'"'"'s content items on an online service.

16. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the group information comprises:

a unique member identifier for each member in the group; and

a list of shared content items to which the item information associated with the group allows access by members of the group.

17. A computing device comprising:

a processor for performing instructions;

a memory associated with the processor for storing the computer program product of claim 11; and

a communication module associated with the memory and the processor for communicating with another computing device.

18. A method facilitating a user to share the user'"'"'s content items with a group of members via a remote server, the method comprising:

receiving, at a remote server, item information that allows access to one or more content items;

receiving, at the remote server, group information associated with the item information, the group information identifying one or more members of the group selected by the user to share the content item;

receiving, at the remote server, a request from a member of the group to access a content item associated with the item information; and

using the item information to allow access to the content item by the requesting member.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the method further comprises:

using the item information to obtain one or more of the content items by the remote server; and

storing the obtained content items on the remote server.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the item information includes authentication information for an account of the user that allows access to the content items via an online service.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein the item information includes source information that indicates where one or more of the content items can be obtained.

22. The method of claim 18, wherein the source information comprises information selected from a group consisting of:

a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) address, an RSS feed, a directory and file name, a memory address, and a redirection address.

23. The method of claim 18, wherein one or more of the content items are located on a local device of the user.