Personal presentity presence subsystem

• US 20080077696A1
• Filed: 09/21/2006
• Published: 03/27/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Nguyen, Hong Thi, Denny, Michael Sean
• Granted Patent: US 8,316,117 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/229
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A personal presentity presence service provides support for heterogeneous presentities. Presentity types including personal presentities are registered with a presentity manifest store that includes information such as type names, addresses of applications associated with actions related to the presentity type, application parameters, icons for watcher application, and the like. Personal presentity service identifies the personal presentity types associated with the user and automatically organizes these into a personal presence group for management and presentation purposes. Users (watchers) can then register for different groups of personal presentities, which are devices and systems personally associated with the user, based on a type of presentity and receive updated presence information.

Claims

1. A method for providing distributed communication services between a watcher and a plurality of presentities that include personal presentities, the method comprising:

receiving descriptions of available presentities, wherein the available presentities include at least one from a set of;

a personal presentity, a person, and an entity-of-interest;

automatically grouping the available presentities based on a type of each available presentity; and

providing access to the available presentities based on their grouping, wherein the access is dynamically configured depending on a type and grouping of each available presentity.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

enabling the watcher to create additional groupings within each available presentity type.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a request for subscription to a group of personal presentities;

subscribing the watcher to the requested group of personal presentities; and

dynamically reconfiguring the access in response to the subscription.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

presenting the watcher with a list of actions associated with the subscribed group of personal presentities.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein presenting the watcher with the list of actions includes reconfiguring a watcher application user interface (UI) based on features and capabilities of a subscribed personal presentity.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the descriptions of the available presentities include at least one from a set of:

a name for each description, an address of at least one application associated with an action related to a particular presentity type, at least one parameter associated with the application, at least one icon to be used in a watcher application user interface (UI), and an authorization definition.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

activating at least one application associated with one of the available presentities in response to a selection by the watcher.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

dynamically modifying the grouping of the available presentities in response to a change in a state of at least one of the available presentities.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

grouping the available presentities based on one;

of a set of presence service provider rules and a set of watcher rules.

10. A system for providing distributed access services in a presence system between a watcher and a personal presentity, comprising:

a presence service management component configured to;

in response to a request from a presence application, register a presentity type with a presentity manifest store, wherein the presentity type includes a personal presentity type;

register any personal presentity of a registered type that is added to the presence system with a presentity store; and

a presence service configured to;

subscribe a watcher application to a requested group of personal presentities based on a type of the personal presentities such that the watcher application is dynamically configured based on presentity manifest information associated with the personal presentities; and

in response to receiving updated presence information from the subscribed personal presentities, provide the presence information to the subscribing watcher application.

11. The system of claim 10, further comprising:

a directory service configured to;

receive a presentity registration request from the presence application; and

manage the registration of the presentity with the presentity store.

12. The system of claim 10, further comprising:

a group management component configured to;

receive a request for subscription to a buddy list of personal presentities from the watcher application; and

subscribe the watcher application to the requested buddy list of personal presentities based on a type of the presentities in the group.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the watcher application is dynamically reconfigured based on the type of the presentities in the subscribed buddy list.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the group management component is further configured to group the personal presentities based on at least one of:

a set of service provider rules provided by the presence service and a set of user rules provided by the watcher application.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the presence service, the presence service management component, and the group management component are configured to communicate through one or more SIP sessions using an IMS infrastructure.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the personal presentities include at least one from a set of:

a monitoring device, an alarm system, an entry system, and a control system associated with a watcher that are configured to communicate with the presence application through one of a wired and wireless network.

17. A presence service for providing presence information to a watcher from a personal presentity in a networked system, comprising:

means for retrieving descriptions of available presentities associated with the presence service;

means for subscribing a watcher application to a group of personal presentities among the list of available presentities;

means for providing manifest information associated with each of the subscribed personal presentities to the watcher application such that the watcher application is dynamically configured based on the manifest information; and

means for providing presence information from the subscribed personal presentities to the watcher application.

18. The presence service of claim 17, further comprising:

means for registering a new presentity type based on a capability and at least one feature of a new presentity of the type to be registered; and

means for registering new presentities under a group based on the newly registered presentity type.

19. The presence service of claim 17, further comprising:

means for receiving a selected action associated with the provided presence information from the watcher application; and

means for performing the selected action by activating at least one client application associated with a personal presentity that provided the presence information.

20. The presence service of claim 17, further comprising:

means for automatically providing updated manifest information to the watcher application in response to one of;

addition of a new presentity type, removal of an existing presentity type, and modification of manifest information associated with a presentity type.