Distributed User Profile

• US 20080288484A1
• Filed: 08/25/2006
• Published: 11/20/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/15/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: Picault, Jerome, Bouzid, Makram, Bonnefoy, David
• Granted Patent: US 9,338,249 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/637 Administration of user profiles, e.g. generation, initialization, adaptation or distribution
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/303 Terminal profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

A reasoning apparatus (101) is arranged to determine device locations for user profile elements of a distributed user profile. A user profile processor (201) receives a user profile which comprises a plurality of user profile elements. Each user profile element furthermore comprises associated metadata. The apparatus (101) also comprises a device profile receiver (203) that receives device profiles for a plurality of devices. A device location processor (205) proceeds to determine device locations for the user profile elements in response to the associated metadata and the device profiles. Specifically, a user profile element may be assigned to a specific device if the device profile for that device matches the metadata for the user profile element. The reasoning apparatus (101) may furthermore comprise a user profile element synchroniser (207) which synchronises the user profile elements with the appropriate devices.

Claims

1. An apparatus for determining device locations for user profile elements of a distributed user profile, the apparatus comprising:

means for receiving a user profile comprising a plurality of user profile elements, each user profile element having associated metadata;

means for receiving device profiles for a plurality of devices; and

reasoning means for determining device locations for the user profile elements in response to the associated metadata and the device profiles.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising means for synchronizing at least one user profile element with a device in response to the determined device location for the at least one user profile element.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising means for communicating a user profile element to a device location determined for that user profile element.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the reasoning means is arranged to generate a device specific user profile for each of the plurality of devices, each device specific user profile being a subset of the user profile.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the reasoning means is arranged to evaluate a relevance criterion for metadata associated with each of the user profile elements in relation to device profiles of the plurality of devices, and to determine a device location for each user profile element as at least one device for which the relevance criterion is met.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the relevance criterion comprises a match criterion that at least one element of a user profile must have associated metadata that matches at least one element of a device profile.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the reasoning means comprises means for determining a first device location for a first user profile element as a first device having a device profile indicating that the first device comprises an application arranged to access the first user profile element.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the reasoning means is arranged to determine a plurality of locations for a single user profile element.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein a first device profile for a first device of the plurality of devices comprises at least one element selected from the group of:

an indication of modalities available at the first device;

an indication of a an application available at the first device;

an indication of a capability of the device; and

an indication of a display capability of the device.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the associated metadata for a first user profile element comprises at least one data element selected from the group consisting of:

an indication of a source application of the metadata for the first user profile element;

an indication of a source application of the first user profile element;

an indication of an application accessing the first user profile element; and

an indication of a time of access of the first user profile element.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the metadata comprises semantic metadata.

12. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein at least some of the metadata is structured according to one or more ontologies.

13. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the means for receiving is arranged to receive the user profile from a single source.

14. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the means for receiving is arranged to receive the user profile from a plurality of sources.

15. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising means for annotating the user profile elements with the metadata

16. A method of determining device locations for user profile elements of a distributed user profile, the apparatus comprising:

receiving a user profile comprising a plurality of user profile elements, each user profile element having associated metadata;

receiving device profiles for a plurality of devices; and

determining device locations for the user profile elements in response to the associated metadata and the device profiles.

17. A computer program product enabling the carrying out of a method according to claim 16.