User profile management system

• US 7,650,342 B2
• Filed: 06/10/2005
• Issued: 01/19/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/10/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Ishikawa, Akira, Sugiyama, Keiji, Hirai, Junichi
• Primary Examiner(s): Fleurantin; Jean B.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ly; Anh
• Application Number:
  US11/628,952
• Publication Number:
  US 20080301166A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,684 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/10, 707100-102, 707/104.1, 705/1, 705/26, 705/34, 705/37, 705/46
• US Class Current: 707/770
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

A management device that provides user profile taking the user'"'"'s situation into consideration. The management device creates, in response to a request from applications, a new user profile (hereinafter referred to as “comprehensive user profile”) based on a plurality of user profiles, and provides it to the applications. The management device always monitors a user'"'"'s situation, directly or indirectly correlates the user'"'"'s situation at the time that the user profile is registered with the user profile, and stores the same. Because the management device creates the comprehensive user profile based on the user profile corresponding to the current user situation, the comprehensive user profile reflects the user'"'"'s situation which changes from time to time.

Claims

1. A management device for collecting user profiles from a user terminal, the management device being connected to the user terminal in which one or more applications operate and create the user profiles, the management device comprising:

a determination criteria storing means for storing one or more user situation determination criteria for determining a user situation;

a collecting means for collecting and storing the user profiles created by the one or more applications;

a request accepting means for accepting a request for a comprehensive user profile from any of the one or more applications;

a user situation managing means for determining, in response to the request for the comprehensive user profile, a current user situation based on the user situation determination criteria;

a creating means for, in response to the request for the comprehensive user profile, extracting, from the user profiles stored in the collecting means, one or more user profiles relating to the current user situation determined by the user situation managing means and creating the comprehensive user profile of the current user situation based on the one or more extracted user profiles relating to the current user situation; and

a transmitting means for transmitting the comprehensive user profile created by the creating means to the one or more applications,

wherein the user situation managing means further stores a relevance level table that defines a level of relevance between determined user situations, and

wherein, in response to the request for the comprehensive user profile, the creating means;

specifies, from the relevance level table, a related user situation other than the current user situation and related to the current user situation;

extracts, from the user profiles stored in the collecting means, one or more user profiles relating to the specified related user situation in addition to the extracted one or more user profiles relating to the current user situation;

weights (i) the extracted one or more user profiles relating to the specified related user situation and (ii) the extracted one or more user profiles relating to the current user situation, based on the level of relevance, indicated by the relevance level table, between the current user situation and the related user situation; and

creates the comprehensive user profile based on each of the weighted user profiles.

2. The management device according to claim 1, wherein the user situation managing means farther accepts a registration of the one or more user situation determination criteria.

3. The management device according to claim 1,

wherein each time the collecting means collects the user profiles, the user situation managing means determines the user situation at a time of collecting the user profiles based on the one or more user situation determination criteria, and

wherein the collecting means correlates the user situation determined by the user situation managing means at the time of collecting the user profiles with the user profiles and stores the user situation correlated with the user profiles.

4. The management device according to claim 1,

wherein the user situation managing means correlates a predetermined user situation with predetermined link information and stores the predetermined user situation correlated with the predetermined link information,

wherein the collecting means correlates the collected user profiles with the predetermined link information and stores the collected user profiles correlated with the predetermined link information, and

wherein the creating means extracts the one or more user profiles using the predetermined link information corresponding to the current user situation as a key, and creates the comprehensive user profile based on the one or more extracted user profiles.

5. The management device according to claim 1,

wherein the request accepting means receives, together with the request for the comprehensive user profile, a format of the comprehensive user profile that the any of the one or more applications can interpret, and

wherein the creating means transmits the created comprehensive user profile after converting the format of the created comprehensive user profile into the format that the any of the one or more applications can interpret.

6. A management method for collecting user profiles from a user terminal, the management method being executed by a computer that is connected to the user terminal in which one or more applications operate and create the user profiles, the management method comprising:

storing one or more user situation determination criteria for determining a user situation;

collecting and storing the user profiles created by the one or more applications;

storing a relevance level table that defines a level of relevance between determined user situations;

accepting a request for a comprehensive user profile from any of the one or more applications;

determining, in response to the accepted request for the comprehensive user profile, a current user situation based on the user situation determination criteria;

extracting, in response to the accepted request for the comprehensive user profile and from the stored user profiles, one or more user profiles relating to the current user situation determined by said determining;

creating, in response to the accepted request for the comprehensive user profile, the comprehensive user profile of the current user situation based on the one or more extracted user profiles relating to the current situation; and

transmitting the created comprehensive user profile to the one or more applications,

wherein, in response to the accepted request for the comprehensive user profile, the creating of the comprehensive user profile further includes;

specifying, from the relevance level table, a related user situation other than the current user situation and related to the current user situation;

extracting, from the stored user profiles, one or more user profiles relating to the specified related user situation in addition to the extracted one or more user profiles relating to the current user situation;

weighting (i) the extracted one or more user profiles relating to the specified related user situation and (ii) the extracted one or more user profiles relating to the current user situation, based on the level of relevance, indicated by the relevance level table, between the current user situation and the related user situation; and

creating the comprehensive user profile based on each of the weighted user profiles.

7. A computer-readable recording medium having a management program recorded thereon, the management program causing a computer terminal to function as a management device for collecting user profiles from a user terminal in which one or more applications operate and create the user profiles, the management device being connected the user terminal, the management program causing the computer terminal to function as:

a determination criteria storing means for storing one or more user situation determination criteria for determining a user situation;

a collecting means for collecting and storing the user profiles created by the one or more applications;

a request accepting means for accepting a request for a comprehensive user profile from any of the one or more applications;

a user situation managing means for determining, in response to the request for the comprehensive user profile, a current user situation based on the user situation determination criteria;

a creating means for, in response to the request for the comprehensive user profile, extracting, from the user profiles stored in the collecting means, one or more user profiles relating to the current user situation determined by the user situation managing means, and creating the comprehensive user profile of the current user situation based on the one or more extracted user profiles relating to the current user situation; and

a transmitting means for transmitting the comprehensive user profile created by the creating means to the one or more applications,

wherein the user situation managing means further stores a relevance level table that defines a level of relevance between determined user situations, and

wherein, in response to the request for the comprehensive user profile, the creating means;

specifies, from the relevance level table, a related user situation other than the current user situation and related to the current user situation;

extracts, from the user profiles stored in the collecting means, one or more user profiles relating to the specified related user situation in addition to the extracted one or more user profiles relating to the current user situation;

weights (i) the extracted one or more user profiles relating to the specified related user situation and (ii) the extracted one or more user profiles relating to the current user situation, based on the level of relevance, indicated by the relevance level table, between the current user situation and the related user situation; and

creates the comprehensive user profile based on each of the weighted user profiles.