METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR A CONTEXT AWARE MECHANISM FOR USE IN PRESENCE AND LOCATION

• US 20090158239A1
• Filed: 12/12/2008
• Published: 06/18/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: SHENFIELD, Michael, MARTIN-COCHER, Gaelle Christine, MCCOLGAN, Brian Edward Anthony
• Application Number:
  US12/333,710
• Publication Number:
  US 20090158239A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/101
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/00 Arrangements for software engineering testing or debugging G06F11/36; administrative, planning or organisation aspects of software project management G06Q10/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information

Abstract

A method for execution in a computing execution environment for the creation of aspects from a service or application, an aspect being an application level abstraction relevant to a source or service, the method comprising: defining related service aspects; inserting or encapsulating service aspects as named aspects into a context aware layer in the execution environment, the context aware layer adapted to be called from a plurality of application types or services; and associating the named aspects with logic in the context aware layer to support application or service function points.

Claims

1. A method within a computing execution environment for the creation of aspects from a service or application, an aspect being an application level abstraction relevant to a source or service, the method comprising:

defining related service aspects;

inserting or encapsulating service aspects as named aspects into a context aware layer of the execution environment, the context aware layer adapted to be called from a plurality of application types or services; and

associating the named aspects with logic in the context aware layer to support applications or service functions.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the context aware layer comprises a server.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the named aspects relate to at least one of presence, location or generic aspects, or represent a computed or combined indication of presence, location or generic aspects.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the named aspects exposed to a watcher relate to a context, group or sphere for the application.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the named aspects exposed to a watcher are common across the plurality of application types or services.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the method further comprises:

providing policies associated with the named aspects at a point in an application life cycle, said policies specifying behavior or treatment of named aspects.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein policies are expressed using a Policy Expression Language (PEL) within an Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Policy Evaluation Enforcement and Management (PEEM).

8. The method of claim 6 wherein policy actions are provided through extensible mark-up language (XML) document management common policy extensions.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein a Policy Expression Language (PEL) ruleset document is created to incorporate extended actions for a particular context aware layer.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the ruleset document is associated with an enabler identifier to provide a scope for the policy, with an application or service identifier to provide a scope for the policy, and wherein the ruleset document applies to a user, group or sphere.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

establishing at least one of rules and triggers for providing a sequence of steps or logic used to compute aspects.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the triggers are defined utilizing open mobile alliances Policy Evaluation Enforcement and Management (PEEM) policy expression language.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein rules are defined using a web services business process execution language.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the web services business process execution language is WSBPEL 2.0.

15. The method of claim 11 wherein at least one of the rules and policies includes thresholds.

16. The method of claim 11 wherein the rules are encapsulated as a function or procedure.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the function or procedure define a library or component for use by the context aware layer in the computation of other aspects.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein the named aspects are part of a component library within the context aware layer.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein named aspects from the component library may be invoked in the calculation of another aspect.

20. The method of claim 1 wherein an aspect is an opt-in or willingness aspect for determining if a presentity is willing to participate in a session for a given service or application.

21. The method of claim 1 wherein an aspect is an available aspect for determining if a presentity is available to communicate using a given service or application.

22. The method of claim 1 wherein an aspect is a contact means aspect for determining if a most applicable method of contact for a given service or application for a presentity is provided.

23. The method of claim 1 wherein an aspect is a contactable aspect for determining if a presentity is willing, available and has a currently valid contact means for a given service or application.

24. The method of claim 1 wherein an aspect is a reachable aspect such that a presentity is contactable for a given service or application on a given device.

25. The method of claim 1 wherein an aspect is a where-are-you aspect such that a current location for a presentity is provided.

26. The method of claim 1 wherein an aspect is a service-avatar aspect such that a current iconic representation for a given service or application is provided for a presentity.

27. The method of claim 1 wherein an aspect is a personal-interests aspect such that current interests, hobbies or application specific user preferences for a presentity are provided.

28. The method of claim 1 wherein an aspect is a who-is-nearby aspect such that a list of zero or more presentities that are within close proximity and meet a set of criteria are provided.

29. The method of claim 1 wherein as aspect is an eligible-session-participant aspect such that a presentity is reachable and meets an optional set of criteria in order to participate in a session of an associated service.

30. An execution environment comprising:

client applications with application types, said client applications employing service aspects for execution, the service aspects being application level abstractions relevant to a source or service; and

a context aware layer adapted to;

insert or encapsulate the service aspects as named aspects;

be called from a plurality of application types or services; and

associate the named aspects with logic in the context aware layer to support application or service function points.

31. The execution environment of claim 30 wherein said service aspects are application level abstractions related to the applications or a service and are associated with a given user, group identity or given data.

32. The execution environment of claim 30 wherein said aspects are extended or enhanced based on an application, service, a given user, group identity or given data.

33. The execution environment of claim 31 wherein said service aspects are extended or enhanced based on an application, service, a given user, group identity or given data.

34. The execution environment of claim 30 wherein the service aspects relate to at least one of, or a combination of, presence, location or generic aspects.

35. The execution environment of claim 30 further comprising:

policies provided at the context aware layer and associated with the aspects at a point in the application life cycle, said policies specifying behavior or treatment of aspects.

36. The execution environment of claim 35 wherein policies are expressed using a Policy Expression Language (PEL) within an Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Policy Evaluation Enforcement and Management (PEEM).

37. The execution environment of claim 36 wherein policy actions are provided through extensible mark-up language (XML) document management common policy extensions.

38. The execution environment of claim 37 wherein a Policy Expression Language (PEL) ruleset document is created to incorporate extended actions a particular abstraction layer requires.

39. The execution environment of claim 38 wherein the ruleset document is associated with an enabler identifier to provide a scope for the policy or with an application or service identifier to provide a scope for the policy.

40. The execution environment of claim 38 wherein the ruleset document applies to a user, group or sphere.

41. The execution environment of claim 30 wherein the context aware layer is further adapted for:

establishing at least one of rules and triggers for providing a sequence of steps or logic used to compute aspects.

42. The execution environment of claim 41 wherein the triggers are defined utilizing open mobile alliances Policy Evaluation Enforcement and Management (PEEM) policy expression language.

43. The execution environment of claim 41 wherein the rules are defined using a web services business process execution language.

44. The execution environment of claim 43 wherein the web services business process execution language is WSBPEL 2.0.

45. The execution environment of claim 41 wherein at least one of the rules and policies include thresholds.