INTELLIGENT MESSAGING SYSTEM TO CONVERT EMAIL TO SMS, EMS AND MMS

• US 20130041964A1
• Filed: 08/14/2012
• Published: 02/14/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/20/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cellco Partnership, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cellco Partnership, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: LIN, Zhijian Jeff
• Granted Patent: US 9,338,613 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/08 Annexed information, e.g. attachments
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/12 Messaging; Mailboxes; Announcements

Abstract

Upon receiving an email for a mobile station containing a subject and a body, the subject and body are combined into a first message. If the email contains an attachment, the first message can be converted into a MMS message. If there is no attachment, the number of characters in the first message can be counted. If the number of characters is less than or equal to a first number of characters, the first message can be converted to a SMS message. If the number is greater than the first number of characters and less than or equal to a second number of characters, the first message can be converted to an EMS message. In addition, if the number of characters is greater than the second number of characters, the first message can be converted to the MMS message.

Claims

1. A method comprising steps of:

determining, at an intelligent messaging system, if an email contains an attachment;

upon determining that the email does not contain the attachment, performing at the intelligent messaging system steps of;

analyzing the body of the email to retrieve a characteristic of the email;

comparing the retrieved characteristic of the email to first and second selection criteria;

selecting, based on the comparison of the retrieved characteristic of the email and the first and second selection criteria, one of a first, a second, or a third message type into which to convert the body of the email; and

converting the body of the email into the selected first, second, or third message type.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising a step of:

upon determining that the email contains the attachment, converting, at the intelligent messaging system, the body of the email into the first message type.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the steps of analyzing, comparing, and converting the body of the email comprise steps of:

counting a number of characters in the body of the email;

if the number of characters is less than or equal to the first selection criteria set to a first limit, selecting the second message type and converting the body of the email to the second message type;

if the number of characters is greater than the first limit and less than or equal to the second selection criteria set to a second limit, selecting the third message type and converting the body of the email to the third message type; and

if the number of characters is greater than the second limit, selecting the first message type and converting the body of the email to the first message type.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein both the subject and body of the email are converted into one of the first, second, or third message type, and

wherein the number of characters corresponds to the number of characters in the subject and body of the email.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising steps of:

determining an amount of bandwidth required for transmitting a message including the body of the email and the attachment; and

selecting, based on the determination of the amount of bandwidth, one of the first, second, or third message types.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising steps of:

determining, among the first, second, and third message types, the message type into which the email and the attachment can be most efficiently converted; and

selecting, based on the determination, one of the first, second, or third message types.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the first message type is a MMS message type;

the second message type is a SMS message type;

the third message type is an EMS message type;

the first selection criterion is a limit of between 140 and 160 characters; and

the second selection criterion is a limit of approximately 1000 characters.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising a step of:

transmitting the converted body of the email using a protocol corresponding to the selected message type.

9. An article of manufacture, comprising:

at least one machine readable non-transitory storage medium; and

programming instructions embodied in said at least one medium for execution by one or more computers, wherein the programming configures said one or more computers to be capable of performing functions for messaging services, the functions comprising functions to;

determine, at an intelligent messaging system, if an email contains an attachment;

upon determining that the email does not contain the attachment, perform at the intelligent messaging system functions to;

analyze the body of the email to retrieve a characteristic of the email;

compare the retrieved characteristic of the email to first and second selection criteria;

select, based on the comparison of the retrieved characteristic of the email and the first and second selection criteria, one of a first, a second, or a third message type into which to convert the body of the email; and

convert the body of the email into the selected first, second, or third message type.

10. The article of claim 9, wherein the programming instructions further configure said one or more computers to perform functions to:

upon determining that the email contains the attachment, convert, at the intelligent messaging system, the body of the email into the first message type.

11. The article of claim 9, wherein the functions to analyze, compare, and convert the body of the email comprise functions to:

count a number of characters in the body of the email;

if the number of characters is less than or equal to the first selection criteria set to a first limit, select the second message type and convert the body of the email to the second message type;

if the number of characters is greater than the first limit and less than or equal to the second selection criteria set to a second limit, select the third message type and convert the body of the email to the third message type; and

if the number of characters is greater than the second limit, select the first message type and convert the body of the email to the first message type.

12. The article of claim 11, wherein both the subject and body of the email are converted into one of the first, second, or third message type, and

wherein the number of characters corresponds to the number of characters in the subject and body of the email.

13. The article of claim 9, wherein the programming instructions further configure said one or more computers to perform functions to:

determine an amount of bandwidth required for transmitting a message including the body of the email and the attachment; and

select, based on the determination of the amount of bandwidth, one of the first, second, or third message types.

14. The article of claim 9, wherein the programming instructions further configure said one or more computers to perform functions to:

determine, among the first, second, and third message types, the message type into which the email and the attachment can be most efficiently converted; and

select, based on the determination, one of the first, second, or third message types.

15. The article of claim 9, wherein:

the first message type is a MMS message type;

the second message type is a SMS message type;

the third message type is an EMS message type;

the first selection criterion is a limit of between 140 and 160 characters; and

the second selection criterion is a limit of approximately 1000 characters.

16. The article of claim 9, wherein the programming instructions further configure said one or more computers to perform functions to:

transmit the converted body of the email using a protocol corresponding to the selected message type.

17. A method comprising steps of:

receiving, at a server, one of a plurality of email messages sent to an email domain name;

comparing, at the server, a characteristic of the email message to first and second selection criteria;

selecting, at the server, based on the comparison to the first and second selection criteria, one of three or more different types of messages;

transforming the email message into the selected type of message, and

transmitting the transformed message to a desired mobile station through a message server associated with the selected type of message.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising the steps of:

receiving, at the server, an attachment to the email message; and

if the attachment is received, selecting a first message type.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the characteristic of the email message is a number of characters in the email message, and

wherein first and second selection criteria are different threshold numbers of characters.

20. A method comprising steps of:

generating a first message from a combination of a subject of an email and a body of the email;

based on whether the email contains an attachment, determining a set of message types into which to convert the first message from different sets of message types,

wherein the set of message types for an email that does not contain an attachment has a plurality of message types;

upon determining that the email does not to contain an attachment, counting a number of characters in the first message and selecting, based on the counted number of characters, one message type among the plurality of message types; and

converting the first message into the selected message type.

21. The method of claim 20,

wherein the set of message types for an email that does contain an attachment has a single message type,

the method further comprising a step of:

converting the first message into the single message type when the email is determined not to contain an attachment.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the plurality of message types comprises at least three message types, and

wherein each of the at least three message types is associated with a different non-overlapping range of numbers of characters.