Method and system for distributed user profiling

• US 20030225785A1
• Filed: 05/29/2002
• Published: 12/04/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/29/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ashbourne Technologies, LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: SBC Technology Resources, Inc. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Arellano, Javier B.
• Granted Patent: US 7,162,494 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/104.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/337 Profile generation, learning or modification
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A data processing method and network for collecting, storing, and providing user profile data. The network comprises a number of persona agents, interconnected to a hub. The persona agents and the hub are stored within the data communications network. Each persona agent is associated with a user of the data communications network, and is operable to collect observational data from an application being executed by the user, as well to receive queries for profile data from the application and to respond to the queries with context-based profile data.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of collecting and managing user profile data in a data communications network, comprising the steps of:

storing profile data about users of the network in a network hub;

storing, in the data communications network, persona agents associated with the users, wherein the persona agents are interconnected by the hub;

wherein each persona agent is operable to perform the following tasks;

to collect observational data from an application used by a user, to receive a query from the application, and to deliver a profile segment associated with the user to the application;

wherein the contents of the profile segment is determined by a context data portion of the profile data; and

wherein the persona agent is further operable to communicate with the hub to obtain the profile segment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the context data is stored as a context signature, operable to permit a profile attribute to have a different value depending on context data.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the persona agent is further operable to mine the observational data to obtain profile data.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the persona agent is operable to act on rules stored in the profile segment to determine privacy preferences of the user.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein each profile segment has a user ID that identifies the user and an agent ID that identifies the persona agent.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the profile segment contains one or more profile features, each profile feature having an associated profile element, a feature signature, and a context signature.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the context data comprises data representing one or more from the following groups of data types:

the location of an activity, network capabilities, device capabilities, and temporal information.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the context data defines where and when profile data is relevant.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of using the persona agent to analyze the observational data and generate context data based on the observational data.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein each profile segment contains a feature signature that contains meta-level data about the profile data.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein each profile segment contains a feature signature that contains permission preferences.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein each profile segment contains a feature signature that contains preservation data.

13. A data processing network for collecting and managing user profile data in a data communications network, comprising:

a number of persona agents, each persona agent associated with a user of the data communications network and operating as a proxy for an application being executed by the user;

at least one persona hub, each hub in data communication with the number of persona agents;

wherein each persona agent is operable to respond to queries from applications seeking user profile data, to receive observational data from the application for the purpose of updating user profile data; and

to deliver a profile segment associated with the user to the application; and

wherein the contents of the profile segment is determined by a context data portion of the profile data.

14. The network of claim 13, wherein the at least one hub is stored on network server.

15. The network of claim 13, wherein the persona agents are stored on one or more network servers.

16. The network of claim 13, wherein the persona agents are stored on user devices.

17. The network of claim 13, wherein each persona agent is further operable to mine the observational data to obtain profile data.

18. The network of claim 13, wherein each persona agent is further operable to act on rules stored in the profile segment to determine privacy preferences of the user.

19. The network of claim 13, wherein each user may have multiple persona agents on the data communications network.

20. The network of claim 19, wherein persona agents associated with a particular user are operable to synchronize data about that user.

21. The network of claim 13, wherein multiple persona agents for the same user are stored in different locations on the network.