SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ACCESS AND COMMUNICATION BETWEEN A CONVERGED NETWORK-BASED ADDRESS BOOK SYSTEM AND A USER DEVICE

• US 20100077027A1
• Filed: 09/17/2009
• Published: 03/25/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/17/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Research In Motion Limited (Blackberry Limited)
• Inventors: McColgan, Brian Edward Anthony, Chitturi, Suresh
• Granted Patent: US 9,130,966 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4594 Address books, i.e. directories containing contact information about correspondents telephone directories in user terminals H04M1/27453
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• 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: H04M 2203/554 Data synchronization

Abstract

A method of sharing contacts within a converged address book system having a converged address book server, the method receiving from a requestor, at the converged address book server, a request for a contact to be shared with a recipient identified in the request; obtaining contact information for the contact from a repository; and delivering the shared contact to the recipient. Also, a method for interaction with a legacy address book system from a network based converged address book system, the method receiving a request to import legacy address book data from a legacy address book system; contacting the legacy address book system and supplying access parameters; retrieving data from the legacy address book system; and storing the imported data in a network based address book storage.

Claims

1. A method of sharing contacts within a converged address book system that includes a converged address book server, the method comprising:

receiving, at the converged address book server, a request for contact information to be shared with a recipient identified in the request, the recipient being different from a requestor that communicated the request;

obtaining the contact information from a repository; and

delivering the shared contact to the recipient.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the repository is a network based personal contact card storage or a network based address book storage or a user device address book.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the request further indicates at least one of a contact entry from an address book, a partial contact entry from an address book, a personal contact card of the requestor, or a partial personal contact card of the requestor.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the request is a hypertext transfer protocol based request with a payload.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the payload is configured in extensible markup language (XML) and based on an XML schema, the payload including one or both of a personal contact card and a contact entry.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the personal contact card belongs to the requestor.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the contact entry is an entry in an address book of the requestor.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the contact information is one of a reference to the contract entry in the network storage or data representing the contact entry.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the delivering comprises updating shared contact information directly in a network based address book of the recipient.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the delivering comprises:

transforming the contact information into a legacy format; and

using a delivery mechanism selected from short message service, email, multimedia message service, and instant messaging service to communicate the contact information in the legacy format.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving is performed indirectly through a proxy.

12. A method for initiating sharing of contacts within a converged address book system that includes a converged address book client, the method comprising:

sending, from the converged address book client to a converged address book server, a request for contact information to be shared with a recipient identified in the request; and

receiving, in response to the sending, a confirmation from the converged address book server.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the request further indicates at least one of a contact entry from an address book, a partial contact entry from an address book, a personal contact card, or a partial personal contact card of the requestor.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the request is a hypertext transfer protocol based request with a payload.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the payload is configured in extensible markup language (XML) and based on an XML schema, the payload including one or both of a personal contact card and a contact entry.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the personal contact card belongs to the requestor.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein the contact entry is an entry in an address book of the requestor.

18. A method for interaction with a legacy address book system from a network based converged address book system, the method comprising:

receiving a request to import legacy address book data from a legacy address book system;

contacting the legacy address book system and supplying access parameters;

retrieving legacy address book data from the legacy address book system; and

storing the legacy address book data in a storage associated with the network based converged address book system.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising triggering a synchronization between the storage associated with the network based address book system and an address book client on a user device.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the request contains the access parameters.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the access parameters include at least one of a domain, data source, username and password.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the request is a hypertext transfer protocol based request with a payload.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the payload is configured in extensible markup language (XML) and based on an XML schema, the payload providing the access parameters for the legacy address book system.

24. The method of claim 18, wherein the receiving is performed indirectly through a proxy.

25. The method of claim 18, further comprising transforming data from the legacy address book format to a format acceptable for storage on the network based converged address book.

26. A method for initiating interaction with a legacy address book system from a network based converged address book system, the method comprising:

requesting, from an address book client, importation of legacy address book data from a legacy address book system; and

receiving, at the address book client, a notification to synchronize the address book client with a network based address book storage,

wherein the notification to synchronize indicates that the network based address book system has imported legacy address book data.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the requesting utilizes an HTTP based request.

28. The method of claim 26, wherein the requesting comprises communicating access parameters for the legacy address book system.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the access parameters include at least one of a domain, data source, username and password.

30. The method of claim 26, wherein the requesting is performed indirectly through a proxy.