Schemas for a notification platform and related information services

• US 7,613,702 B2
• Filed: 08/12/2005
• Issued: 11/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• 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 AL
• Application Number:
  US11/203,485
• Publication Number:
  US 20050278344A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,544 Days
• Field of Search: 707/10, 707/101, 707/102, 707/9, 709/200, 709/203, 709/206, 709/220, 709/245, 709/207, 705/10, 717/106
• 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 having an information source and a device set comprising client devices associated with a user, at least one of the client devices being configured to receive notifications for presentation to the user, a system comprising,

at least one processor, and

an information agent service configured to receive a notification directed to the user from the information source, the notification comprising data regularized in accordance with a notification schema, the information agent service being configured to access user criteria to determine conditions for communicating the notification to the user, access context information that indicates client devices in the device set that are likely to be online and accessible to the user, select at least one client device from the device set based on the user criteria and the context information, and communicate the notification to the selected at least one client device of the device set based on the conditions;

wherein the user criteria comprise user preference information regularized according to a preference schema, and wherein the user criteria further comprise at least one of people and groups data regularized according to a people and groups schema, extended context data regularized according to an extended context schema, or client computing context data regularized according to a client computing context schema.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the device set comprises a plurality of devices, and wherein the information agent service determines a selected device of the set to send the notification to based on the user criteria.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the information agent service accesses device data corresponding to the selected device, and modifies data in the notification to match the device data of the selected device.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the user criteria comprise user presence data regularized according to a presence schema, user location data regularized according to a location schema, and user schedule data regularized according to a schedule schema.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the device receives the message, and further comprising a local device policy and a local notification manager, the local notification manager determining whether to output the notification based on the local device policy and metadata of the notification.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the user criteria comprise source client preference information regularized according to a source preference schema for access by the information source, the source client preference information comprising first preference information of the user, and main client preference information regularized according to a main preference schema for access by the information agent service, the main client preference information comprising second preference information of the user, and wherein the information source is configured to set data in the notification data based on the first preference information and the information agent service is configured to modify the notification data based on the second preference information.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the user criteria comprises source client preference information regularized according to a source preference schema for access by the information source, and main client preference information regularized according to a main preference schema for access by the information agent service, and further comprising, a subscription process configured to enable editing of the source preference information via a pointer or path from the main client preference information.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the notification comprises at least one item of a set, the set containing, an independent message emitted by the information source, a message emitted by the information source that accompanies other communicated data.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the notification includes information about preferences for rendering of content, preferences for rendering different approximations of the content, content to be rendered comprising multiple components, and/or content to be rendered comprising multiple types of information.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the notification includes fidelity information corresponding to the content to be rendered.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the notification includes encoded preferences with respect to content in the notification for different devices that may handle the rendering of the content, and/or information about the ability to render and the fidelity of rendering needed by devices.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein the information agent service is configured to modify the notification based on the information in the notification with respect to a capability of the device to render content.

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

14. At least one computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions, which when executed by at least one processor perform a method, the method comprising:

receiving at an information agent service a notification directed to a user from an information source, the notification comprising data regularized in accordance with a notification schema;

accessing client criteria to determine conditions for communicating the notification to the user;

accessing context information that indicates client devices in a device set that are likely to be online and accessible to the user;

selecting at least one client device from the device set based on the user criteria and the context information; and

communicating the notification to the selected at least one client device of the device set based on the conditions;

wherein the client criteria comprise user preference information regularized according to a preference schema, and wherein the client criteria further comprise at least one of people and groups data regularized according to a people and groups schema, extended context data regularized according to an extended context schema, or client computing context data regularized according to a client computing context schema.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 wherein the user preference information comprises source preference information accessible to the information source and/or main preference information accessible to the information agent service.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15 wherein the information agent service modifies data of the notification based on the main client preference information.

17. At least one computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions, which when executed by at least one processor perform a method, the method comprising:

receiving at an information agent service a notification directed to a user from an information source, the notification comprising data regularized in accordance with a notification schema;

accessing client criteria to determine conditions for communicating the notification to the user;

accessing context information that indicates client devices in a device set that are likely to be online and accessible to the user;

selecting at least one client device from the device set based on the user criteria and the context information; and

communicating the notification to the selected at least one client device of the device set based on the conditions;

wherein the client criteria comprise source client preference information regularized according to a source preference schema for access by the information source, the source client preference information comprising first preference information of the user, and main client preference information regularized according to a main preference schema for access by the information agent service, the main client preference information comprising second preference information of the user, and wherein the notification received by the information agent service comprises data set by the information source based on the source client preference information, the method further comprising the information agent service modifying the notification including the data set by the information source based on the main client preference information.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17 wherein communicating the notification to at least one client device of a device set based on the conditions comprises modifying the notification based on a capability of the device to render content.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17 wherein the device receives the message, and the method further comprising determining at the device whether to output the notification based on a local device policy and metadata of the notification.