TECHNIQUE FOR HANDLING URLS FOR DIFFERENT MOBILE DEVICES THAT USE DIFFERENT USER INTERFACE PLATFORMS

• US 20120096366A1
• Filed: 10/15/2010
• Published: 04/19/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cellco Partnership, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cellco Partnership, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: NARLA, Madan Mohan, SHAKE, Siva Babu
• Granted Patent: US 9,009,599 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/744
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/303 Terminal profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/563 Data redirection of data network streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/60 Subscription-based services using application servers or record carriers, e.g. SIM application toolkits

Abstract

The examples provided teach techniques and devices used to route a request received from a mobile station via a URL link that is independent from the user interface platform used on the mobile device. This request is received at a web server which routes the request to an application server based on the URL link. The application identifies the user interface platform used by the mobile station and determines whether the application is supported by that user interface platform. If the application is not supported by the user interface platform, the application server reroutes the request to another application server having the application that is supported by the user interface platform and the application at the other server carries out the request and sends the response to the mobile station.

Claims

1. A method of providing content to one mobile station from amongst a plurality of mobile stations that use different user interface platforms, comprising steps of:

providing a first content page to the one mobile station through a mobile communication network, the first content page containing a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) as a user selectable link to a second content page, the URL being independent of a user interface platform of the one mobile station;

receiving at a server through the mobile communication network a request from the one mobile station, the request containing the URL and information identifying the user interface platform of the one mobile station;

obtaining content for the second page based on the URL and the identifying information contained in the request; and

sending the second content page, in a format in accordance with the identified user interface platform of the one mobile station, through the mobile communication network to the one mobile station for presentation to a user of the one mobile station.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of obtaining content for the second page comprises:

routing the request to a primary application, the primary application receiving the request based on information contained in the URL;

rerouting the request to a secondary application upon return of the request from the primary application wherein the rerouting to the secondary application is based on the information identifying the user interface platform obtained by primary application, the secondary application being configured to generate one or more content pages in a format in accordance with a different one of the user interface platforms, the secondary application being configured to provide one or more content pages in the format in accordance with the identified user interface platform of the one mobile station; and

receiving the content for the second page from the secondary application.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the request is routed to the primary application based upon a context root of the URL.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the server is a web server and the applications run on more than one application server.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the primary application is a WAP application and the secondary application is a type of application selected from the group consisting of a SMI application and a MW3 application.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the URL is a deep linking URL.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the information identifying the user interface platform of the one mobile station is contained in the header of the request.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the identifying information contained in the header comprises information identifying the one mobile station'"'"'s make and model.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the identified user interface platform is one of a plurality of user interface platforms and the one mobile station is a mobile station of one of a plurality of types of mobile stations, the identified user interface platform being the only user interface platform used by the one mobile station.

12. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 10, wherein the function of obtaining content for the second page comprises:

routing the request to a primary application, the primary application receiving the request based on information contained in the URL;

rerouting the request to a secondary application upon return of the request from the primary application, the rerouting to the secondary application based on the information identifying the user interface platform obtained by primary application, the secondary application being configured to generate one or more content pages in a format in accordance with a different one of the user interface platforms, the secondary application being configured to provide one or more content pages in the format in accordance with the identified user interface platform of the one mobile station; and

receiving the content for the second page from the secondary application.

14. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein information identifying the user interface platform of the one mobile station is contained in the header of the request.

5. (canceled)

11. A non-transitory machine readable medium having a program for execution by a processor of a computer, wherein the program configures the computer to implement functions comprising:

providing a first content page to the one mobile station through a mobile communication network, the first content page containing a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) as a user selectable link to a second content page, the URL being independent of a user interface platform of the one mobile station;

receiving at a server through the mobile communication network a request from the one mobile station, the request containing the URL and information identifying the user interface platform of the one mobile station;

obtaining content for the second page based on the URL and the identifying information contained in the request; and

sending the second content page, in a format in accordance with the identified user interface platform of the one mobile station, through the mobile communication network to the one mobile station for presentation to a user of the one mobile station.

13. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13 wherein the URL is a deep linking URL.

15. A mobile station provider network configured to provide content to one mobile station from amongst a plurality of mobile stations that use different user interface platforms, the network comprising:

a primary application server configured to (i) receive a request from for a content page from the one mobile station, the request containing a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and an identification of the user interface platform used by the one mobile station;

(ii) identify which one of a plurality of applications is needed to carry out the request from the one mobile station using the identification of the user interface platform; and

(iii) reroute the request to the identified application; and

a secondary server configured to (i) receive the request for the content page from the primary application server;

(ii) obtain the content page based on the URL provided in the request; and

(iii) send the requested content page to the one mobile station in a format in accordance with the identified user interface platform of the one mobile station, when the identified application is an application on the secondary server.

16. The network of claim 15, wherein the primary application server is further configured to obtain the content page based on the URL provided in the request and send a requested content page to another mobile station upon determining that an application of the primary application server is the application needed to provide content in a format in accordance the user interface platform of the other mobile station.

17. The network of claim 15, wherein the primary application server is configured to receive the request for the content page based on a context root of the URL.

18. The network of claim 15, wherein the primary application server is configured to identify which one of the plurality of applications is needed to carry out the request based on information in the header of the URL.

19. The network of claim 15, wherein the primary application is a WAP application and the secondary application is a type of application selected from the group consisting of a SMI application and a MW3 application.

20. A system for providing content to one mobile station from amongst a plurality of mobile stations that use different user interface platforms, the system comprising:

a primary application configured to receive a request for content from the one mobile station, wherein the request contains a uniform resource locator (URL) and an identification of the user interface platform of the one mobile station, wherein the primary application uses the URL and the identification to identify a correct one of a plurality of applications to process the request;

a secondary application configured to receive the URL request sent to the secondary application from the primary application upon determination by the primary application that the secondary application is the correct application to carry out the request, wherein the secondary application processes the request to obtain the requested content in a format in accordance with the identified user interface platform of the one mobile station; and

a web server for receiving the request for content from the mobile station and routing the request to the primary server and for receiving the content requested by the mobile station from the secondary application and sending the content requested to the mobile station.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the primary application is a WAP application and the secondary application is a type of application selected from the group consisting of a SMI application and a MW3 application.

22. The system of claim 20, wherein the web server routes the request for content to the primary application based on a context root in the URL.