SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CONTEXTUAL ADDRESSING OF COMMUNICATIONS ON A NETWORK

• US 20090150514A1
• Filed: 12/10/2007
• Published: 06/11/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/10/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Herendeen, Julie, Davis, Marc Eliot, Higgins, Christopher William, Martinez, Ronald, Boerries, Marco, O'Sullivan, Joseph James, Trout, Robert Carter
• Granted Patent: US 8,671,154 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/365 Application layer names, e.g. buddy names, unstructured names chosen by a user or home appliance name
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/103 across network layers, e.g. resolution of network layer into physical layer addresses or address resolution protocol [ARP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/30 Managing network names, e.g. use of aliases or nicknames name-to-address mapping H04L61/45
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context

Abstract

The disclosure describes systems and methods delivering communications based on contextual addresses. An address string containing two or more identifiers, which may not be unique identifiers, and at least one conditional operator are provided as the address for a message or communication. The system identifies contextual relationships between a plurality of entities based on prior communications between the entities over the network. Based the contextual relationships, each identifier in the address string is disambiguated to identify one of the entities as a recipient and any associated delivery conditions controlling the delivery of the communication. The communication is then delivered to the identified recipient in accordance with the delivery condition.

Claims

1. A method of transmitting information objects (IOs) comprising:

receiving a request from a sender real-world entity (RWE) to deliver a first IO to a recipient RWE, wherein the request identifies the recipient RWE by providing an address string including at least a first non-unique descriptor, a second non-unique descriptor and a conditional operator identifying a relationship between the first and second non-unique descriptors;

accessing a plurality of second IOs, the second IOs including information associated with a plurality of RWEs including the recipient RWE;

selecting the recipient RWE from the plurality of RWEs based on a comparison of the second IOs, the first non-unique descriptor and the second non-unique descriptor; and

transmitting the first IO to the selected recipient RWE using a unique identifier associated with the recipient RWE.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting further comprises:

identifying, based on information in the second IOs, one or more third RWEs identified by the first non-unique descriptor;

identifying, based on information in the second IOs, one or more fourth RWEs identified by the second non-unique descriptor;

generating, based on information in the second IOs, a different probability score for each combination of third RWE and fourth RWE;

selecting one of the combinations based on the probability scores; and

selecting the recipient RWE from the third RWE and fourth RWE in the selected combination based on the conditional operator.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

retrieving the unique identifier for the recipient RWE from a set of unique identifiers associated with the recipient RWE.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein each unique identifier in the set of unique identifiers is associated with a different communication channel and the method further comprises:

selecting, based on the request, one of the different communication channels for transmitting the first IO to the recipient RWE; and

selecting the unique identifier for the recipient RWE associated with the selected one of the different communication channels.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein accessing further comprising:

identifying second IOs associated with the sender RWE; and

retrieving the second IOs associated with the sender RWE.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

identifying the second non-unique descriptor as a delivery condition selected from a time, a location and a predefined event;

identifying, based on the information in the second IOs, one or more third RWEs identified by the first non-unique descriptor;

generating a different probability score for each third RWE based on the information in the second IOs;

selecting the recipient RWE from the third RWEs based on probability scores; and

transmitting the first IO to the selected recipient when the delivery condition is met.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

identifying the first non-unique descriptor as a generic identifier for a service; and

selecting the recipient RWE from a list of third RWEs associated with the service.

8. The method of claim 8 further comprising:

identifying the second non-unique descriptor as a delivery condition selected from a time, a location and a predefined event; and

selecting the recipient RWE from the list at least in part based on the delivery condition.

9. A computer-readable medium encoding instructions for performing a method of identifying a unique address for a real-world entity (RWE) on a communication network, the method comprising:

receiving a request from a sender RWE identifying a target RWE, wherein the request identifies the target RWE by providing an address string including a plurality of non-unique descriptors and one or more conditional operators identifying a relationship between two or more of the non-unique descriptors;

accessing a plurality of information objects (IOs), the IOs including information associated with RWEs on the network;

generating a probability score for one or more of the RWEs based on the information in the IOs, the non-unique descriptors and the conditional operators;

selecting the target RWE from the one or more RWEs based on the probability score; and

identifying a unique address associated the selected target RWE.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein selecting further comprises:

transmitting information associated with the selected target RWE to the sender RWE; and

receiving confirmation from the sender RWE that the selected target RWE is the target RWE identified by the request.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

searching each of the IOs for the non-unique descriptors;

for each IO containing one or more of the non-unique descriptors, identifying a RWE associated with the IO and an association context describing a relationship between the identified RWE and the one or more non-unique descriptors; and

generating the probability score for each of one or more of the RWEs based on the association contexts identified for that RWE.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein accessing further comprises:

accessing IOs associated only with the sender RWE.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein generating a probability score further comprises:

for each RWE associated with a non-unique descriptor by one or more IOs, generating a descriptor-specific probability score for that RWE based on the association contexts, the descriptor-specific probability score describing a probability that the non-unique descriptor refers to that RWE; and

generating, for each of one or more of the RWEs, an overall probability score based on the descriptor-specific probability scores, the overall probability score describing a probability that the address string identifies that RWE.

14. A system for delivering information objects (IOs) comprising:

a correlation engine connected via at least one communication channel to a plurality of computing devices transmitting IOs over the at least one communication channel;

computer-readable media connected to the correlation engine storing at least one of social data, spatial data, temporal data and logical data associated with a plurality of real-world entities (RWEs) including the plurality of computing devices;

wherein the correlation engine, based on the detection of a request to deliver a first IO to an address string having at least a first entity identifier, a delivery condition descriptor and a conditional operator identifying a relationship between the first entity identifier and the delivery condition descriptor, identifies one or more relationships between the first IO, the and the plurality of RWEs; and

an addressing engine that generates a first probability for each combination of two of the plurality of RWEs based on the identified relationships and the address string, selects one of the plurality of RWEs as being identified by the first entity identifier based on the first probabilities generated, and associates the first IO with the selected one of the plurality of RWEs via associating a unique network identifier for the selected one of the plurality of RWEs with the first IO.

15. The system of claim 14 further comprising:

a delivery manager that retrieves a unique communication channel address for the selected one of the plurality of RWEs and transmits the first IO to the unique communication channel address, the unique communication channel address being different from the address string.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the addressing engine further generates a second probability and a third probability for each of the plurality of RWEs, the second probability based on a comparison of the first entity identifier, data of the first IO and the data stored in the computer-readable media and the third probability based on a comparison of the delivery condition descriptor, data of the first IO and the data stored in the computer-readable media.

17. The system of claim 14 further comprising:

an attribution engine that identifies an owner of the first IO from the data of the first IO, the owner being one of the plurality of RWEs; and

wherein the addressing engine further generates the first probability for each of the plurality of RWEs based on relationships between the owner and the other RWEs stored in the computer-readable media.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein each relationship is assigned a weight and the first probability for each of the plurality of RWEs is generated in part based on relative weights of the relationships between the owner and the other RWEs stored in the computer-readable media.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the social data, spatial data, temporal data and logical data associated with a plurality of RWEs are derived from the IOs transmitted over the at least one communication channel.

20. A method for delivering data comprising:

identifying relationships between a plurality of entities based on prior communications between the entities;

disambiguating, based the relationships, each identifier in an address string containing two or more identifiers and at least one conditional operator, thereby selecting a delivery condition and one of the entities as a recipient; and

delivering data associated with address string to the selected recipient in accordance with the delivery condition.

21. The method of claim 20 further comprising:

selecting one of a set of communication channels associated with the recipient; and

delivering the data via the selected communication channel.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the communication channel is selected from an electronic mail message communication channel, a telephone network communication, a text messaging communication channel and a voice over internet protocol communication channel.