DISTRIBUTING NOTIFICATIONS TO MULTIPLE RECIPIENTS VIA A BROADCAST LIST

• US 20070083561A1
• Filed: 12/11/2006
• Published: 04/12/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Kalki, Jagadeesh, Lai, William
• Granted Patent: US 9,460,421 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/335 for accessing specific resources, e.g. using Kerberos tickets
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6227 where protection concerns the structure of data, e.g. records, types, queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6236 between heterogeneous systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6272 by registering files or documents with a third party
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/629 to features or functions of an application
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2115 Third party
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2117 User registration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2119 Authenticating web pages, e.g. with suspicious links
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2141 Access rights, e.g. capability lists, access control lists, access tables, access matrices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2149 Restricted operating environment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/133 Protocols for remote procedure calls [RPC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/303 Terminal profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 : Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 : Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/564 : Enhancement of application control based on intercepted application data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/62 : Establishing a time schedule for servicing the requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 : in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 : Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 : Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99939 : Privileged access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 : Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 : Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

Processing a notification intended for delivery to multiple recipients associated with a broadcast list. Software executes within an alerts service environment to receive a notification addressed to a broadcast alias, determine a list of recipients associated with the broadcast alias to receive the notification, and broadcast the received notification to each recipient in the determined list.

Claims

1. A system for processing a notification, said system comprising:

a memory area to store a notification received from a third-party content provider, said notification comprising routing information and content, said routing information including a broadcast alias;

one or more computing devices to enable delivery of the stored notification to a plurality of users based on the broadcast alias, said memory area being associated with the one or more computing devices; and

a computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions to be executed on each of the computing devices to access the stored notification, determine a list of users associated with the broadcast alias for receiving the stored notification, and deliver the stored notification received from the third-party content provider to the determined list of users.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of computing devices comprises a master router and a plurality of worker routers, said master router to associate the stored notification with one of the plurality of worker routers.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the memory area comprises a plurality of databases.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a computer-readable medium having stored thereon a data structure, said data structure being associated with an application programming interface, said data structure comprising:

a broadcast list identifier associated with the broadcast alias; and

a list of users associated with the broadcast list identifier.

5. The system of claim 4, further comprising a broadcast list table to associate the broadcast list identifier with a member table, said member table to store the list of users associated with the broadcast list identifier.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising a user profile database to store user routing preferences, wherein the instructions, when executed by the computing devices, route the stored notification to the users on the determined list based on user routing preferences corresponding thereto stored in the user profile database.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed by the computing devices, deliver the stored notification by sending the stored notification and the determined list of users to a third-party gateway, said third-party gateway to deliver the stored notification to each of the users on the determined list.

8. A method for processing a notification, said method comprising:

receiving, by a computing device from a content provider, a data packet representing a notification, said data packet comprising routing information, said routing information including a broadcast alias, said computing device being coupled to the content provider via a data communication network;

determining, by the computing device, a list of recipients associated with the broadcast alias to receive the data packet; and

delivering, by the computing device, the received data packet to the determined list of recipients.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising populating an activity queue with the received data packet.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising accessing the activity queue to obtain the stored data packet.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein determining the list of recipients comprises:

retrieving a broadcast list identifier from a broadcast list table via the broadcast alias; and

identifying one or more recipients associated with the broadcast list identifier by accessing a member list table, said one or more recipients representing the list of recipients.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein delivering the received data packet comprises sending the received data packet and the determined list of recipients to a third-party gateway for delivering the received data packet to each of the recipients on the determined list.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein delivering the received data packet to the determined list of recipients comprises delivering the received data packet to computing devices associated with each recipient on the determined list.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the computing devices include one or more of the following:

a cellular telephone, a pager, a handheld computing device, and a smart personal object.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein delivering the received data packet comprises delivering the received data packet via one or more transport mediums.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the transport mediums include one or more of the following:

electronic mail, instant messaging, and mobile short-message-service messaging.

17. The method of claim 8, wherein one or more computer-readable storage media having computer-executable instructions for performing the method recited in claim 8.

18. One or more computer-readable storage media having computer-executable components for processing a notification, said components comprising:

an interface component for receiving a data packet representing a notification, said data packet comprising routing information, said routing information including a broadcast alias;

an address component for determining a list of recipients associated with the broadcast alias to receive the data packet; and

a broadcast component for delivering the received data packet to the determined list of recipients.

19. The computer-readable storage media of claim 18, wherein the address component determines the list of recipients by retrieving a broadcast list identifier from a broadcast list table via the broadcast alias and identifying one or more recipients associated with the broadcast list identifier by accessing a member list table, said one or more recipients representing the list of recipients.

20. The computer-readable storage media of claim 18, wherein the interface component receives the data packet having time-sensitive content.