Method and system for processing queries intiated by users of mobile devices

• US 20060069664A1
• Filed: 09/30/2004
• Published: 03/30/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Benjamin C. Ling, Hanping Feng, Jian Gong Deng, Jie J. Wu
• Inventors: Feng, Hanping, Ling, Benjamin C., Wu, Jie J., Deng, Jian Gong
• Granted Patent: US 7,643,822 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90335 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9038 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/066 Format adaptation, e.g. format conversion or compression
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information

Abstract

In one embodiment, a method for processing queries initiated by users of mobile devices includes receiving an incoming message containing a query initiated be a user of a mobile device, and extracting the query from the received message. The message further includes obtaining a result of the query and creating an outgoing message with the result of the query for delivery to the mobile device.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving an incoming message containing a query initiated by a user of a mobile device;

extracting the query from the incoming message;

obtaining a result of the query; and

creating an outgoing message with the result of the query for delivery to the mobile device.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the incoming message is any one of a Short Messaging Service (SMS) message, a Multimedia Message Service (MMS) message, and an email message.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the outgoing message is any one of a Short Messaging Service (SMS) message, a Multimedia Message Service (MMS) message, and an email message.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the query initiated by the user of the mobile device is entered by the user on the mobile device.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the query initiated by the user of the mobile device is a voice query.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the voice query is processed by a speech recognition module of the mobile device.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein extracting the query from the incoming message comprises processing the voice query using a speech recognition module.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein obtaining the result of the query comprises:

determining a type of the query;

forwarding the query to a search engine associated with the type of the query; and

receiving the result of the query from the search engine associated with the type of the query.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the type of the query is any one of a yellow page type, a driving direction type, a phone book type, a product price type, a calculator type, a glossary type, a headline news type, a help request type, a stock ticker type, a map type, and a spell checker type.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein determining the type of the query comprises:

evaluating the syntax of the query.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein creating the outgoing message comprises:

determining that the query result exceeds a predefined size;

splitting the query result into a plurality of result portions; and

creating a message for each of the plurality of result portions.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the message for each of the plurality of result portions includes an indicator of a sequence of said each of the plurality of result portions within the query result.

13. An apparatus comprising:

an incoming message parser to receive an incoming message containing a query initiated by a user of a mobile device, and to extract the query from the incoming message;

a query result receiver to obtain a result of the query; and

an outgoing message creator to create an outgoing message with the result of the query for delivery to the mobile device.

14. An apparatus comprising:

means for receiving an incoming message containing a query initiated by a user of a mobile device;

means for extracting the query from the incoming message;

means for obtaining a result of the query; and

means for creating an outgoing message with the result of the query for delivery to the mobile device.

15. A computer readable medium comprising instructions, which when executed on a processing system, cause the processing system to perform a method comprising:

receiving an incoming message containing a query initiated by a user of a mobile device;

extracting the query from the incoming message;

obtaining a result of the query; and

creating an outgoing message with the result of the query for delivery to the mobile device.