Registering client computing devices for online communication sessions

• US 9,577,976 B2
• Filed: 12/18/2014
• Issued: 02/21/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/07/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Mathias, Arun, Santamaria, Justin, Wood, Justin, Abuan, Joe, Brown, Jeremy, Gates, Patrick, Klahn, Matthew, Vyrros, Andrew H., Thomas, Braden, Yao, Drew
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Cong
• Application Number:
  US14/575,093
• Publication Number:
  US 20150180822A1
• Time in Patent Office: 796 Days
• Field of Search: 455/466, 455/412.1, 455/412.2, 455/59, 709/466, 709/412.1, 709/412.2, 709/59, 709/206, 713/159, 713/173
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/234 for tracking messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1073 Registration or de-registration
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1083 In-session procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1089 by adding media; by removing media
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4061 Push-to services, e.g. push-to-talk or push-to-video
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0057 Services where the data services network provides a telephone service in addition or as an alternative, e.g. for backup purposes, to the telephone service provided by the telephone services network
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]

Abstract

Registering a client computing device for online communication sessions. A registration server receives a message that has a push token that is unique to the client computing device and a phone number of the client computing device from an SMS (Short Message Service) transit device, which received an SMS message having the push token from the client computing device and determined the phone number of the client computing device from that SMS message. The registration server associates the push token and the phone number and stores it in a registration data store, which is used for inviting users for online communication sessions.

Claims

1. A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations for registering a client computing device for online communication sessions, the operations comprising:

receiving a message originated from a registration service that an email address provided to the registration service is not validated and that an email message will be sent or has been sent to the email address provided to the registration service;

using one or more processors of the client computing device, automatically checking an email account corresponding to the email address for a validation email message;

responsive to the validation email message being received at the email account, automatically parsing the validation email message to locate a validation token; and

transmitting an email address validation request message that includes the email address and the validation token to an email validation server to validate the email address.

2. The medium of claim 1, wherein automatically checking the email account for the validation email message includes periodically polling an email client on the client computing device for the validation email message.

3. The medium of claim 1, wherein automatically checking the email account for the validation email message includes periodically polling an email server remote from the client computing device for the validation email message.

4. The medium of claim 1, wherein automatically checking the email account for the validation email message includes identifying the validation email message by one or more of predefined contents of one or more header fields and existence of a predefined validation token field.

5. The medium of claim 4, wherein the one or more header fields includes at least one of a source address header field and destination address header field.

6. The medium of claim 1, wherein the email address validation request message sent to the email validation server additionally includes an identifying token to cause the email validation server to store an indication that the client computing device having the identifying token is requesting the email address to be validated, wherein the identifying token uniquely identifies the client computing device.

7. The medium of claim 6, wherein the identifying token uniquely identifies the client computing device based on one or more hardware identifiers.

8. The medium of claim 7, wherein the one or more hardware identifiers includes a serial number of the client computing device or an ICC-ID (Integrated Circuit Card ID) of a SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card.

9. The medium of claim 1, wherein the email address validation request message transmitted to the email validation server additionally includes an online communication session profile associated with a user of the client computing device.

10. The medium of claim 9, further comprising instructions to perform additional operations comprising:

receiving an email address validated success message originated from the registration service that indicates that the email address has been validated; and

transmitting an activate email address request message to the registration service that includes the email address and an online communication session profile identifier to cause the email address to be activated as an online communication session endpoint identifier associated with the online communication session profile.

11. The medium of claim 10, further comprising instructions to perform additional operations comprising:

receiving a set of email credentials for the email address from the registration service after transmitting the activate email address request message to the registration service; and

transmitting an online communication session registration request message to the registration service that includes the email address, the set of email credentials, and the online communication session profile identifier.

12. The medium of claim 11, wherein the online communication session registration request message transmitted to the registration service additionally includes

an identifying token that uniquely identifies the client computing device based on one or more hardware identifiers, the identifying token to cause the registration service to associate the identifying token with the online communication session profile having the email address.

13. The medium of claim 12, wherein the identifying token contains information to enable a push notification service to locate and transmit a push notification message to the client computing device.

14. The medium of claim 13, wherein the email address validated success message is received as the push notification message, the push notification message sent using information from the identifying token.

15. A system for registering a client computing device for online communication sessions, the system comprising:

an email validation server to receive an email validation message from the client computing device, the email validation message including an email address, an online communication session profile identifier that identifies an online communication session profile of a user of the client computing device, and an identifying token associated with the client computing device, wherein the email validation server is further to store an indication that the client computing device having the identifying token is requesting the email address to be validated and the identifying token uniquely identifies the client computing device;

wherein the email validation server is further to validate the email address and transmit an email address validation status message that indicates that the email address has been validated;

wherein the identifying token contains information to enable a push notification service to locate and transmit a push notification message to the client computing device; and

wherein the email validation server sends the email address validation status message as the push notification message, the push notification message sent using information from the identifying token.

16. The system as in claim 15, wherein the identifying token uniquely identifies the client computing device based on one or more hardware identifiers including a serial number of the client computing device or an ICC-ID (Integrated Circuit Card ID) of a SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card.

17. The system as in claim 15, further comprising a registration server associated with the email validation server and the client computing device registration service, the registration server to:

receive an activate email address request message from the client computing device after the email validation server validates the email address, the activate email address request message including the email address and the online communication session profile identifier; and

activate the email address as an online communication session endpoint identifier associated with the online communication session profile identifier.

18. A client computing device including:

one or more processors coupled to memory, the one or more processors to cause the client computing device to perform operations to,

receive a message originated from a registration service that an email address provided to the registration service is not validated and that an email message will be sent or has been sent to the email address provided to the registration service;

automatically check an email account corresponding to the email address for a validation email message;

responsive to the validation email message being received at the email account, automatically parse the validation email message to locate a validation token; and

transmit an email address validation request message to an email validation server to validate the email address, the email address validation request message including the email address, the validation token, and an identifying token which uniquely identifies the client computing device, wherein the identifying token contains information to enable a push notification service to locate and transmit push notification messages to the client computing device.

19. The device as in claim 18, wherein the identifying token is to uniquely identify the client computing device using one or more hardware identifiers including a serial number of the client computing device or an ICC-ID (Integrated Circuit Card ID) of a SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card.

20. A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations for registering a client computing device for online communication sessions, the operations comprising:

receiving a message originated from a registration service that an email address provided to the registration service is not validated and that an email message will be sent or has been sent to the email address provided to the registration service;

using one or more processors of the client computing device, automatically checking an email account corresponding to the email address for a validation email message;

responsive to the validation email message being received at the email account, automatically parsing the validation email message to locate a validation token; and

transmitting an email address validation request message that includes the email address and the validation token to an email validation server to validate the email address, wherein the email address validation request message sent to the email validation server additionally includes an identifying token to cause the email validation server to store an indication that the client computing device having the identifying token is requesting the email address to be validated and the identifying token uniquely identifies the client computing device based on one or more hardware identifiers.