Extensible System and Method to Bridge SIP and UPnP Devices

• US 20090175296A1
• Filed: 01/04/2008
• Published: 07/09/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/04/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: General Instrument Corporation (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Inventors: Goffin, Glen P., Chintada, Suresh Kumar, P, Sethuramalingam
• Granted Patent: US 8,873,570 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/466
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2809 indicating that an appliance service is present in a home automation network monitoring functionality H04L43/0817; discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services, H04L67/51
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/282 based on user interaction within the home receiver circuitry for displaying additional information being controlled by a remote control apparatus H04N21/42204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2832 Interconnection of the control functionalities between home networks single bridge functionality H04L12/4625
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/102 Gateways arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways, H04L12/66
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1045 Proxies, e.g. for session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• 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 67/59 Providing operational support to end devices by off-loading in the network or by emulation, e.g. when they are unavailable

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention generally provide a method and apparatus for bridging session initiation protocol and universal plug and play devices. One embodiment of the invention specifies a method that enables legacy session initiation protocol and universal plug and play devices to communicate with each other (i.e., to access services), where the term “legacy” is defined to mean IETF RFC 3261-compliant for session initiation protocol devices, and DLNA 1.0-compliant for universal plug and play devices. The method enables inter-working between the session initiation protocol and universal plug and play devices without requiring changes to the legacy devices. One embodiment of the invention is a transparent software bridge that enables these features.

Claims

1. A method for bridging a session initiation protocol device and a universal plug and play device, the method comprising:

detecting that both of the session initiation protocol device and the universal plug and play device are legacy devices; and

bridging the session initiation protocol device and the universal plug and play device using a bridge.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the bridging comprises:

discovering at least one universal plug and play device, including one or more services associated with the at least one universal plug and play device;

associating a user service request address with each discovered universal plug and play device and the discovered universal plug and play device'"'"'s associated services.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the user service request address reuses a format of a session initiation protocol field as described in Request for Comments 3261.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the user service request address reuses a uniform resource identifier field.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the bridging further comprises:

registering at least one universal plug and play service using semantics of the session initiation protocol uniform resource identifier.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein a “

To”

field of a Request for Comments 3261 session initiation protocol header is used in a REGISTER method to specify a universal plug and play service for registration in a session initiation protocol domain.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the bridging further comprises:

locating the least one universal plug and play service using semantics of the session initiation protocol uniform resource identifier.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein a “

To”

field of a Request for Comments 3261 session initiation protocol header is used in an INVITE method to enable the session initiation protocol device to locate the at least one universal plug and play service.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the bridging further comprises:

invoking the least one universal plug and play service using semantics of the session initiation protocol uniform resource identifier.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein a “

To”

field of a Request for Comments 3261 session initiation protocol header is used in an INVITE method to enable the session initiation protocol device to call at least one media item.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the invoking comprises:

generating a set of one or more actions for the at least one universal plug and play device to perform.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the bridging comprises:

representing the session initiation protocol device to a universal plug and play network as a universal plug and play audio/visual renderer device; and

mapping at least one operation of the universal plug and play device to at least one session initiation protocol message.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein a universal plug and play GetProtocolInfo( ) message is used to obtain the protocol/format list of the session initiation protocol device.

14. A computer readable medium containing an executable program for bridging a session initiation protocol device and a universal plug and play device, where the program performs the steps of:

detecting that both of the session initiation protocol device and the universal plug and play device are legacy devices; and

bridging the session initiation protocol device and the universal plug and play device using a bridge.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the bridging allows the session initiation protocol device to access at least one universal plug and play service.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 15, wherein the bridging comprises:

discovering at least one universal plug and play device, including one or more services associated with the at least one universal plug and play device;

associating a user service request address with each discovered universal plug and play device and the discovered universal plug and play device'"'"'s associated services.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the user service request address reuses a format of a session initiation protocol field as described in Request for Comments 3261.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein the bridging further comprises:

registering at least one universal plug and play service using semantics of the session initiation protocol uniform resource identifier;

locating the least one universal plug and play service using semantics of the session initiation protocol uniform resource identifier; and

invoking the least one universal plug and play service using semantics of the session initiation protocol uniform resource identifier.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the bridging allows the universal plug and play device to access at least one session-based service offered by the session initiation protocol device.

20. A system comprising:

a session initiation protocol device; and

a universal plug and play device bridged to the session initiation protocol device, wherein both of the session initiation protocol device and the universal plug and play device are legacy devices.