METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR NOTIFYING AN ADDRESSEE OF A COMMUNICATION SESSION

• US 20080281905A1
• Filed: 04/14/2008
• Published: 11/13/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Flash Networks, Ltd. (Constellation Software Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Flash Networks, Ltd. (Constellation Software Incorporated)
• Inventors: LANGER, Moshe
• Granted Patent: US 8,819,111 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/224 providing notification on incoming messages, e.g. pushed notifications of received messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/58 Message adaptation for wireless communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1083 In-session procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/2876 Pairs of inter-processing entities at each side of the network, e.g. split proxies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/565 Conversion or adaptation of application format or content adding application control or application functional data H04L67/561

Abstract

Requests for communications and for establishing communication sessions with an intended addressee are detected and notifications regarding the pending communication request are provided to the intended addressee. If the addressee is operating on-line in an IP environment, the messages are delivered to the addressee via a real-time mechanism. However, if the addressee is not operating on-line in an IP environment, a message is sent via an alternate means, such as SMS, email etc. For on-line addressees, if the addressee is presently running an application program, the type of application program can be ascertained and the notification message can be compatible with the rendering functions of the application program.

Claims

1. An apparatus for providing a notification regarding a pending communication session based on the Internet Protocol (IP) to the intended recipient of the communication session, wherein the apparatus is installed as an intermediate node between a plurality of user'"'"'s terminals and a plurality of servers, the apparatus comprising:

at least one notification message generator operable to receive information on the pending communication session, to parse the received information and create a notification message compatible with an application program which is currently used by the intended recipient of the pending communication session;

at least one manipulator in association with the at least one notification message generator and is capable of manipulating at least portions of the data transferred from a server out of the plurality of servers toward the intended recipient of the pending communication session to include the notification message; and

an interface module operable to intercept data packets that are transferred between the plurality of users and the plurality of servers;

parse the packets;

rout information on pending communication sessions to the at least one notification message generator;

rout packets coming from the plurality of servers toward the at least one manipulator; and

rout packets coming from the manipulator toward the plurality of users.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the interface module further being operable to parse traffic associated with the terminal to identify the application program.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein if the application program used by the intended recipient of the pending communication session is a browser, then the notification message is markup language content.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein if the application program used by the intended recipient of the pending communication session is a video stream player then the notification message is video content.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein if the application program used by the intended recipient of the pending communication session is a messaging program, then the notification message is injected text.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the pending communication is a real-time bi-directional communication session and, the at least one notification message generator is further operable to create a notification message by embedding instructions as to how to access the real-time bi-directional communication session.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one notification message generator is operable to parse the received data packet to identify a request to establish a communication session with the intended recipient.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the at least one notification message generator is operable to create the notification message by including instructions on how to accept the request to establish a communication session.

9. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the at least one notification message generator is operable to create the notification message compatible with the application program by creating content that can be rendered by the application program.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising an off-line notification module that generates notification messages that are not based on Internet Protocol, and wherein information on the pending communication session is transferred from the interface module to the off-line notification module when the intended recipient of the pending communication session is not communicating with one of the plurality of servers.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the off-line notification module is an SMS generator and the information about the pending communication session is sent toward the intended recipient of the pending communication session as an SMS message.

12. An apparatus for providing a communication session notification to an intended addressee, wherein the apparatus is installed in an intermediate node between a plurality of terminals and a plurality of servers, and wherein the communication between the terminals and the servers is based on Internet Protocol (IP), the apparatus comprising:

one or more content manipulators capable of manipulating data that is carried by packets that are accessible by the apparatus;

one or more notification message generators, each notification message generator being associated with at least one of the content manipulators and being operable to create a notification message compatible with an application that is manipulated by the associated one or more content manipulator;

wherein the associated notification message generator creates a notification message, which is delivered to the associated content manipulator to be embedded within content that is transferred toward the addressee.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, further comprising:

a routing and management module operable to;

i. receive packets that are transferred between the plurality of terminals and the plurality of servers;

ii. analyze a request contained in one or more packets for establishing a communication session between an initiator and an addressee and obtaining information about the communication session including the identity of the addressee; and

iii. transfer the information about the communication session to notification message generator that is associated with the content manipulator that is associated with the addressee of the requested communication session.

14. A method for providing a communication notification to an intended addressee of the communication, wherein the communication is between a terminal and an application server and is based on Internet Protocol (IP), the method comprising:

receiving packets that are transferred between a plurality of terminals and a plurality of servers;

parsing the received packets to identify a request for establishing the communication;

analyzing the request to collect information about the communication;

creating a notification message that includes information about the communication; and

sending the notification message toward the intended addressee.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising the step of:

determining an application that is being utilized by the intended addresses and, if the application involves fetching mark up language files, then the notification message is an object included with a next requested mark up language file.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the object is a popup message included with a next requested mark up language file.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising the steps of:

determining if the intended addressee is currently communicating using an IP application; and

if the intended addresses is not currently communicating using an IP application, then the step of creating a notification message further comprises creating an SMS message.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising the steps of:

determining an application that is being utilized by the intended addresses and,

wherein the step of creating a notification message further comprises creating a notification message that is suitable for rendering through the application that is being utilized by the addressee.

19. The method of claim 14, further comprising the steps of:

determining an application that is being utilized by the intended addresses and,

wherein the step of creating a notification message further comprises embedding the notification message within the content that is handled by the application.

20. The method of claim 14, further comprising the steps of:

determining an application that is being utilized by the intended addresses and,

wherein the step of creating a notification message further comprises including instructions regarding how to access the communication and embedding the notification message within the content that is handled by the application.

21. The method of claim 14, further comprising the steps of:

parsing received packets to determine an application that is being utilized by the intended addresses and,

wherein the step of creating a notification message further comprises including instructions regarding how to access the communication and embedding the notification message within the content that is handled by the application.