Mobile phone controls preprocessor

• US 9,189,607 B1
• Filed: 09/03/2014
• Issued: 11/17/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: T-Mobile Innovations LLC (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: Sprint Communications Company LP (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Wick, Ryan A., Smith, Nathan R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Agosta, Steve D
• Application Number:
  US14/476,339
• Time in Patent Office: 440 Days
• Field of Search: 4554561-457, 455410-411, 455/418, 726 1- 2, 726 26- 30, 717/127
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/52 during program execution, e.g. stack integrity ; Preventing unwanted data erasure; Buffer overflow
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2141 Access rights, e.g. capability lists, access control lists, access tables, access matrices
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/08 Access security

Abstract

A method of policy management and control on a mobile phone. The method comprises receiving a user interface change request by a launcher application executing on the mobile phone, requesting permissions from an interface control application programming interface (API) by the launcher application, receiving a response from the interface control application programming interface by the launcher application, where the response indicates if the user interface change is permitted, and enforcing the received permission by the launcher application, where enforcing the received permission comprises executing the user interface change request when the user interface change is permitted, and where enforcing the received permissions comprises not executing the user interface change request and presenting a message to a user of the mobile phone when the user interface change is restricted.

Claims

1. A method of policy management and control on a mobile phone, comprising:

receiving, by a launcher application executing on the mobile phone, a user interface change request to change a user interface of the mobile phone, the user interface comprising one or more panels and the one or more panels comprising a plurality of cells, wherein the user interface change request comprises one of adding, deleting, or rearranging user interface elements, changing wallpaper, invoking a search, or opening a settings menu, and wherein the user interface elements comprise shortcuts, widgets, and folders;

requesting, by the launcher application, permissions from an interface control application programming interface (API), wherein the permissions comprise one or more context based permissions based on at least one of a time of day, a day of week, a geographic location, or a relative location;

receiving, by the launcher application, a response from the interface control application programming interface, wherein the response indicates whether the user interface change is permitted;

enforcing, by the launcher application, the received permission, wherein enforcing the received permission comprises executing the user interface change request in response to the user interface change being permitted, and wherein enforcing the received permission comprises not executing the user interface change request and presenting a message to a user of the mobile phone in response to the user interface change being restricted;

sending, by the mobile phone, current settings of the mobile phone and installed applications on the mobile phone to an administration server; and

receiving, by the mobile phone, updated permissions and applications.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the permissions are based on at least one of the user interface elements.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the permissions are based on one of a panel location or a cell location on the user interface.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface elements occupy one or more cells on the panel, and wherein rearranging the user interface elements comprises moving the user interface element to another panel.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising pushing initial permissions and updates to permissions to the launcher application from the interface control application programming interface.