BROADCAST NOTIFICATION SYSTEM

• US 20150304265A1
• Filed: 04/21/2014
• Published: 10/22/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/21/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Inventors: Vincent, Jonathan
• Granted Patent: US 10,110,536 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/224 providing notification on incoming messages, e.g. pushed notifications of received messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services

Abstract

An online content management service can manage distribution of event notifications to client devices based on notification keys. Client devices can register with the content management service to receive event notifications associated with one or more specific notification keys of interest. The content management service can receive information about events, determine a notification key for each event, and selectively send notifications to clients that are registered for that notification key. The content management service can store event notifications for client devices that are generated during a period when the client device is not in communication with the content management service and can send the missed event notifications to the client device when the client device reestablishes communication with the content management service.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a server, a request to register a client device for a notification key, wherein the notification key corresponds to a type of event in a content management system;

in response to the request, storing, by the server, an association between the notification key and the client device;

receiving, by the server, information about an event that occurs in a content management system, wherein the event is of the type of event corresponding to the notification key;

in response to determining that the client device is not in communication with the server, storing, by the server, information about an event notification for the event, the event notification stored in association with a client identifier of the client device.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the event is related to a change in a content item and wherein the event notification includes an indication of the change.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

generating the event notification based on the received information about the event.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

in response to determining that that the client device is in communication with the server, sending the event notification to the client device; and

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining one or more other client devices that have registered for the notification key;

determining whether each of the one or more other client devices is in communication with the server; and

sending the event notification to each of the one or more client devices that have communication with the server;

storing information about the event notification in association with a client identifier of each of the one or more client devices that do not have communication with the server.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

in response to re-establishing communication with the client device, determining, based at least in part on the stored information, that the client device did not previously receive the event notification; and

sending, to the client device, the event notification that was not previously received.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

maintaining, by the server, a count of event notifications sent to the client device;

receiving, from the client device, a request for event notifications that were not previously received by the client device, wherein the request includes a count of event notifications previously received; and

in response to determining that the count of event notifications previously received matches the count of event notifications sent to the client device, sending to the client device an event notification that was not previously received by the client device.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising:

in response to determining that the count of event notifications previously received does not match the count of event notifications sent to the client device, preventing the client device from receiving event notifications that were not previously received.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving a request to delete registration of the notification key for the client device; and

in response to the request, removing the stored association between the notification key and the client identifier.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

updating a count of event notifications for the client device in response to sending the event notification, wherein the count of event notifications indicates a number of event notifications sent to the client device.

11. A server system comprising:

a communication interface configured to communicate with a plurality of client devices;

a client registration data store to store a mapping of each of the plurality of client devices and one or more notification keys for which the client device is registered;

a missed events data store to store records of missed event notifications; and

a notifier module coupled to the communication interface, the client registration data store, and the missed events data store and configured to;

generate an event notification in response to received event information;

identify a particular notification key that corresponds to the event;

identify, based on the registration information in the client registration data store, one or more client devices from the plurality of client devices as being registered for the particular notification key;

in response to determining that at least one of the identified client devices is not in communication with the server, store a missed event notification record in the missed events data store, the missed event notification record indicating which of the identified client devices did not receive the event notification.

12. The server system of claim 11 wherein the notifier module is further configured to:

send the event notification to each of the identified client devices that is in communication with the server.

13. The server system of claim 11 further comprising:

a registrar module coupled to the notifier module, the communication interface, and the client registration data store and configured to;

receive a request to register a particular client device of the plurality of client devices for a particular notification key of the plurality of notification keys; and

store an association between the particular notification key and the particular client device in the client registration data store in response to the request to register the particular client device.

14. The server system of claim 13 wherein the registrar module is further configured to:

receive a request to deregister the particular notification key for the particular client device; and

removing an association between the particular notification key and the particular client device from the client registration data store in response to the request to deregister the particular client device.

15. The server system of claim 11 wherein the notifier module is further configured to:

subsequently to re-establishing communication with a particular client device, determine whether a missed event notification record is stored for the particular client device in the missed events data store; and

send the missed event notification to the particular client device in the event that the missed event notification record is stored for the particular client device.

16. The server system of claim 15 wherein the notifier module is further configured to:

maintain a count of event notifications sent to the particular client device; and

receive, from the particular client device, a count of notifications previously received by the particular client device;

wherein the missed event notification is sent to the particular client device in the event that the count of notifications sent to the particular client device matches the count of notifications previously received by the particular client device.

17. The server system of claim 11,

wherein the communication interface is further configured to determine whether a particular client device has re-established communication with the server;

and

wherein the registrar is further configured to remove, from the missed events data store, an association of a missed event notification record with the particular client device in the event that the particular client device does not re-establish communication with the server during a timeout period.

18. A method comprising:

sending, by a client device, to a server of a content management service, a request to register the client device for one or more notification keys;

receiving, by the client device, an event notification corresponding to one of the notification keys for which the client device is registered;

subsequently to re-establishing communication with the server when the client device did not have communication with the server, receiving, by the client device, an event notification that was not received by the client device when the client device did not have communication with the server.

19. The method of claim 18 further comprising:

updating a presentation of a content item in response to receiving an event notification that indicates a change in the content item.

20. The method of claim 18 wherein the event notification includes a command that specifies the change to be made to the content item.

21. The method of claim 18 further comprising:

updating a count of received event notifications in response to receiving the event notification, wherein the count of received event notifications indicates a number of event notifications that are received when the client device has communication with the server.

22. The method of claim 21 further comprising:

sending a request to the server for event notifications that were not received by the client device when the client device did not have a communication with the server, wherein the request includes the count of received event notifications.