Inbox Management

• US 20080109543A1
• Filed: 11/03/2006
• Published: 05/08/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/03/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Tedesco, Megan Lesley, Robinson, Jeremy, Lichtenstein, Craig, Abanami, Thamer A., Zuber, Mark D.
• Granted Patent: US 7,908,219 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/1063 Personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2101 Auditing as a secondary aspect
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/00 User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 705/904 Usage protection of distributed files

Abstract

Media devices that transfer content to other devices may man age a user'"'"'s received media files by creating a media device inbox. Shared content may be stored in an inbox cache that is separate from the device'"'"'s main content library to exclude limited-access inbox content from interaction with the device'"'"'s main library. Further, inbox content may be altered upon expiration to reduce resource consumption and inbox clutter.

Claims

1. A method for managing an inbox of a media device having a graphical user interface including an inbox interface and a media library interface, the media device also having a plurality of media object repositories including a content library and an inbox cache, wherein the content library and the inbox cache are independent of each other, the method comprising:

associating a limited use license with a media object, the media object including content and metadata;

communicating the media object from a computing device to the media device;

storing the media object in the inbox cache, displaying the metadata in the inbox interface, and accessing the content through the inbox interface when the limited use license is satisfied; and

removing the metadata from the inbox interface when the limited use license is not satisfied.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing at least a portion of the media object in the inbox cache when the limited use license is satisfied.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising limiting access to the content when the limited use license is not satisfied.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the limited use license comprises an expiration condition associated with the media object, the expiration condition comprising at least one of a period of time or a number of plays;

and

wherein the limited use license is not satisfied when the expiration condition is satisfied.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein displaying the metadata in the inbox interface comprises displaying the metadata in order of the expiration condition.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein removing the metadata from the inbox interface when the limited use license is not satisfied comprises removing the metadata from the inbox interface when the expiration condition is satisfied.

7. The method of claim 4, further comprising altering a metadata appearance in the inbox interface when the expiration condition is true.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein accessing the media object through the inbox interface when the limited use license is satisfied comprises accessing the metadata of the media object, the metadata pointing to the content of the media object.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising accessing the media object from the inbox cache through the media library interface.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising purchasing the media object to satisfy the limited use license.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising transferring the media object to the media library when the media object is purchased.

12. A method for managing an inbox of a media device including a media library interface and an inbox interface, the method comprising:

communicating a media object from a computing device to the media device, the media object including content and metadata;

displaying the metadata in the inbox interface;

accessing the media object from the inbox interface when an expiration condition associated with the media object is false, wherein the media object may not be accessed from the media library interface; and

at least one of eliminating access to the content of the media object and altering a metadata appearance in the inbox interface when the expiration condition is true;

wherein the expiration condition is true when at least one of a period of time since communicating the media object from a computing device to the media device has elapsed and the media object has been accessed number of times.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the media device comprises a content library and an inbox cache, and wherein the content library and the inbox cache are independent of each other, the method further comprising:

storing the metadata of the media object in the inbox cache when the expiration condition is true.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the metadata comprises audio object metadata and video object metadata, the audio object metadata comprising a song name, an artist name an album name, a music genre, and a release date, and the video object metadata comprising a title, a television video type, a movie video type, video credits, a family rating, a release date, a duration release date, and a duration.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising purchasing the media object;

and

transferring the media object to the media library when the media object is purchased.

16. A system for managing an inbox of a first portable digital media device, the first media device comprising:

an inbox interface in communication with an inbox cache;

a media library interface in communication with a media library;

a media object stored in the inbox cache and sent from a second portable digital media device, wherein the media object is only able to be rendered by the first media device and is only accessible through the inbox interface; and

a security module, wherein the security module limits the ability of the first media device to render the media object stored in the inbox cache.

17. The system of claim 16, where in the security module limits at least one of a number of times the media object is rendered or a period of time in which the media object is accessible.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the media object comprises content and metadata.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the metadata comprises audio object metadata and video object metadata, the audio object metadata comprising a song name, an artist name, an album name, a music genre, and a release date, and the video object metadata comprising a title, a television video type, a movie video type, video credits, a family rating, a release date, a duration release date, and a duration.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the metadata is stored in the inbox cache and the content is made inaccessible by a comparison made by the security module of the metadata and a journal file, the journal file comprising historical data of the media objects received by the first media device.