Schemas for a notification platform and related information services

• US 6,980,993 B2
• Filed: 03/14/2002
• Issued: 12/27/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Horvitz, Eric J., Fang, Lijiang, Lucovsky, Mark H., Wu, Winnie C., Pierce, Shaun D., Steckler, Paul A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Shahid
• Application Number:
  US10/099,467
• Publication Number:
  US 20030097485A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,384 Days
• Field of Search: 707/10, 707/100, 707/101, 707/102, 707/3, 709/203, 709/217, 709/245, 709/246, 709/313, 709/200, 705/10
• 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

Described is a schema-based notification platform that provides regularized notification handling including user control and normalization of the operation of policies across different information types and contexts. Information-service schemas and services are combined to build a content-sensitive and context-sensitive information service to communicate information to recipient devices of users that subscribe to those services. An information agent service collects the information, and based on various criteria, determines if, when, and how to send and render the information, and to which subscribing client device or devices. The set of schemas include a notification schema that represents the subscription of a service to an information source and details about that information, and a device schema that represents information about user devices. The information agent service accesses criteria including user preferences and user contextual information, including presence information, location information, and schedule information along with people and groups data and extended-context data. Preferences about subscriptions and information handling policies may be stored and used at notification sources or in more central preference encodings. Access to multiple preferences is maintained, and a user interface is provided that allows users to inspect and control multiple subscriptions in one conceptual place.

Claims

1. In a computer network, a method comprising,

receiving a notification directed to a client from an information source, the notification regularized according to a notification schema;

determining whether the user should receive the notification based on user preference and context data, and if so, determining a selected device to receive the notification and sending the notification to the selected device, wherein the preference data comprises source preference data regularized according to a source preference schema for access by the source, and main preference data regularized according to a main preference schema for access by an information agent where the notification is recieved, and

determining at the information source that the user should receive the notification based on source preference data, and modifying data of the notification at the information agent based on the main preference data before sending the notification output to the selected device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising, obtaining information about the selected device from a device service, and modifying data of the notification based on the information about the selected device before sending the notification output to the selected device.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the device service provides the information about the selected device in a data structure regularized according to a device schema.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising, accessing the context data from a service, the context data regularized according to a context schema.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising, at the context service, accessing the context data from at least one other service, including a presence service, a location service or a schedule service.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the presence service provides data regularized according to a presence schema, the location service provides data regularized according to a location schema, and the schedule service provides data regularized according to a schedule schema.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising, accessing the context data from at least one service, the context data regularized according to at least one of a presence schema, a location schema or a schedule schema.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the preference data is regularized according to a preference schema.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising, receiving the context data regularized according to an extended context schema.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising, receiving the context data regularized according to a people and groups schema.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising, receiving the context data regularized according to a client computing context schema.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein it is determined that the user should not receive the notification based on user preference and context data, and further comprising, discarding the notification.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein it is determined that the user should not receive the notification based on user preference and context data, and further comprising, storing the notification.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising, performing a later determination on whether the user should receive the notification based on user preference and context data, and if the later determination indicates the user should receive the notification, determining a selected device to receive the notification and sending the notification to the selected device.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the preference data comprises the source preference data accessible to the source and regularized according to the source preference schema, and further comprising, editing the source preference data.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the notification comprises an independent message emitted by the information source.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein the notification comprises a message emitted by the information source that accompanies other communicated data.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein the notification comprises a subset of the total notification data that the notification schema is capable of representing.

19. The method of claim 1 wherein the notification comprises rendering preference data.

20. The method of claim 1 wherein the notification includes rendering and fidelity information, and wherein determining a selected device comprises, evaluating the rendering and fidelity information ability with respect to available devices.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein a device that is not currently available is selected as the selected device, and further comprising, waiting for the selected device to be available before sending the notification.

22. The method of claim 20 wherein a device that is currently available is selected as the selected device, and further comprising, modifying content in the notification into an approximate version of the content before sending the notification.

23. The method of claim 1 wherein the notification comprises multiple types or components of content for rendering, and further comprising, determining capabilities of the selected device, and modifying the notification content based on capabilities of the selected device before sending the notification to the selected device.

24. The method of claim 23 wherein the order of data that comprises the content establishes a preference for sending the content to a device.

25. The method of claim 23 wherein the notification includes fidelity information that corresponds to the multiple types or components of content type in the notification.

26. The method of claim 1 wherein the notification comprises multiple types or components of content for rendering, and further comprising, receiving the content at the selected device, and determining content to render based on the capabilities of the selected device.

27. The method of claim 1 wherein the notification includes rendering and fidelity information, and wherein determining a selected device comprises, evaluating the rendering abilities of available devices and available bandwidth data for sending the notification.

28. A computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the method of claim 1.