System and method for integrating multiple messaging systems

• US 7,272,634 B2
• Filed: 10/14/2004
• Issued: 09/18/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/18/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Booth, Theodore R. III, Clement, Jason Lee, Moon, Brian James, Wieck, Kyoko Takeda
• Primary Examiner(s): Caldwell; Andrew
• Assistant Examiner(s): BLAIR, DOUGLAS B
• Application Number:
  US10/964,939
• Publication Number:
  US 20050210112A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,069 Days
• Field of Search: 709201-230, 709/246
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/066 Format adaptation, e.g. format conversion or compression
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/56 Unified messaging, e.g. interactions between e-mail, instant messaging or converged IP messaging [CPM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/58 Message adaptation for wireless communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/4509 Unified messaging with single point of access to voicemail and other mail or messaging systems unified messaging in packet switching networks H04L51/56
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42374 where the information is provided to a monitoring entity such as a potential calling party or a call processing server
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5141 Details of processing calls and other types of contacts in an unified manner unified messaging in packet-switching networks H04L51/56
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5307 for recording messages comprising any combination of audio and non-audio components

Abstract

A system and method for allowing a sender to use a generic message entry form for all messaging systems, including email, instant messaging, and the like. The user enters the recipient'"'"'s name and the message, and a dispatch server intelligently routes the message to the recipient using an appropriate messaging engine.

Claims

1. A server computer accessible to at least one sender computer and at least one recipient computer over the Internet, comprising:

means for selecting one of plural messaging engines for invocation, in response to receiving a message from a sender computer not designating a message service, the means for selecting choosing, as the messaging engine;

if a recipient user indicates he is in a meeting, email;

if the recipient user indicates he is actively at work, instant messenger; and

if the message includes multimedia, multimedia messaging service; and

means for formatting the message from the sender computer as appropriate for use with the messaging engine selected by the means for selecting, for transmission thereof to the recipient computer using the messaging engine selected by the means for selecting.

2. The computer of claim 1, wherein the means for selecting includes means for determining whether a messaging system has been specified in the message and if so, invoking a messaging engine associated with the messaging system.

3. The computer of claim 1, wherein the means for specifying selects a messaging engine at least in part based on recipient presence information.

4. The computer of claim 1, wherein the means for specifying selects a messaging engine at least in part based on recipient preference information.

5. The computer of claim 1, wherein means for selecting selects a default messaging engine at least in the absence of other messaging engine designation information in the message from the sender computer.