Systems for customizing behaviors and interfaces in service invocations

• US 7,739,407 B1
• Filed: 12/29/1999
• Issued: 06/15/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Nokia Solutions and Networks US LLC (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nokia Solutions and Networks US LLC (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Pakkala, Timo
• Primary Examiner(s): Ries; Laurie
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nguyen; Chau
• Application Number:
  US09/474,819
• Time in Patent Office: 3,821 Days
• Field of Search: 709/227, 709/219, 709/206, 709/232, 709/217, 709/203, 709/246, 455/461, 455/405, 713/168, 379/93.24, 395/200.57, 395/200.36
• US Class Current: 709/246
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/083 using passwords cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication using a predetermined code H04L9/3226
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/06 Authentication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/72 Subscriber identity
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/00 Wireless network protocols or protocol adaptations to wireless operation

Abstract

A system for personalizing and customizing user behaviors and interfaces includes a plurality of terminals for transmitting, processing and receiving information wherein the terminals are configured to each transmit a transmission signal including an identifier (ID) for identifying each of the terminals. The system also includes a network having a plurality of access points operable to communicate with the network, and a Service Enabling server connected to the network wherein each of the plurality of terminals are configured to independently access the Service Enabling server and upon accessing the Service Enabling server, a necessary service requested by the user of the terminal requesting the service is selected. Information related to the service is then placed in an understandable form for the terminal and the user.

Claims

1. A communications service system for transmitting data between terminals and through the Internet, comprising:

a Service Enabling server connected to the Internet for receiving a request for a necessary service from a terminal of a requesting user, said request including an identifier (ID) for identifying a terminal type of the terminal, the Service Enabling server comprising user profiles for a plurality of users and terminal capability files containing terminal profiles for a plurality of specific terminal types, each of the user profiles identifying preferences and terminal types used by a respective one of the plurality of users, wherein

upon receiving the request by the Service Enabling server from the terminal, the Service Enabling server retrieves from a server on the Internet the necessary service requested by the requesting user, and

the information relating to the necessary service is changed, by the Service Enabling server, from a form that is output by the server to a form that is compatible with the terminal of the requesting user, a terminal type of the terminal used by the requesting user being determined from a corresponding one of the user profiles based on the ID and said form that is compatible with the terminal being determined by looking up the determined terminal type of the terminal used by the requesting user in the terminal capability files,

wherein said Service Enabling server includes a list of selection identifiers for service requests, said Service Enabling server replacing the name of the service requests with the selection identifier in messages to the terminal to streamline the message forwarding process.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a client protocol which is received by the Service Enabling server with the request for information relating to the necessary service and wherein the Service Enabling server further creates HTTP requests and converts HTTP responses to the HTTP requests to the client protocol.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of terminals, each including a set of terminal parameters comprising command completion parameters, content type conversion of responses parameters, adaptive response formatting for different display capability parameters, and protocol conversion parameters.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the Service Enabling server outputs the information in WML content and converts the WML content to SMS content.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the Service Enabling server outputs the information in HTML content and converts the HTML content to WML content.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the Service Enabling server outputs the information in HTML content and converts the HTML content to SMS content.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of terminals, each including a set of terminal properties and wherein the Service Enabling server cuts content from the information and sends only an amount of the information which fits a display on the at least one terminal in the plurality of terminals, and wherein the user sends a new query to the Service Enabling server in response to the cut content and the at least one terminal receives a next portion of content that includes an identifier for the cut content.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the at least one terminal in the plurality of terminals is a mobile phone.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising a special-applications server and a terminal gateway to the special-applications server, said terminal gateway and said terminal being controlled according to technical capabilities of said terminal gateway and said terminal.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein said ID is a Mobile MSISDN (mobile subscriber integrated service digital network) or account-password pair.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the terminal of the requesting user is a phone which accesses the Internet using Speech-to-Text/Text-to-Speech Gateways.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the terminal of the requesting user is any wireless device adapted to interface to the Internet through gateways.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the user profile of said Services Enabling server comprises user persistent application data including identity of the user, user preferences, terminal being used to access the Services Enabling server, and application and software being used.

14. The system of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of gateways for different types of terminals.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein said Service Enabling server comprises terminal adaptation features for supporting a plurality of different types of terminals, said terminal adaptation features including command completion, content-type conversion of responses, adaptive response formatting for different display capabilities, and unified messaging services.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein said command completion feature parses an actual service from a command received from the at least one terminal and accepts inputs including at least one of terminal type, command name, user id, and flags specifying an order for command completion.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the inputs are stored in a user profile.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein said Service Enabling server comprises at least one access Servlet comprising an authentication server or an authentication and authorization server.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein said Service Enabling server performs authentication using a separate authentication server which checks the user identity based on an account-password pair or an MSISDN.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the Service Enabling server comprises a gateway/access Servlet pair comprising a gateway Servlet and a corresponding access Servlet for each of the different terminal types.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein a set of said gateway/access servlet pairs offers uniform messaging for the Service Enabling server between different terminal types.

22. The system of claim 1, wherein said Service Enabling provides commands as services as an interface for external services to access information regarding client terminal devices.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein said commands comprise at least one of a display command for obtain details of a terminal display, a keypad command for obtaining details of a terminal keypad, and command completion for transform an input into a text known by the service.

24. The system of claim 1, wherein said terminal profiles for each terminal type in the terminal capability files comprise at least one of terminal identity, display, input, and connection characteristics.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the display characteristics comprise at least one of image display capability, character display capability, and display buffers.

26. The system of claim 24, wherein input characteristics comprise details regarding the input device.

27. The system of claim 24, wherein connection characteristics comprise details related to the type of connection used to access the server platforms.

28. The system of claim 24, wherein said terminal profiles comprise XML files.

29. The system of claim 1, wherein said terminal identity comprises vendor, model and version.

30. The system of claim 1, wherein said ID for identifying a terminal type of the at least one terminal further identifies the user of the at least one terminal.

31. The system of claim 1, wherein said user profile includes information identifying the user and the terminal type.

32. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the user profiles further comprise user identity, aliases of commands, status and the location of the corresponding user.

33. A method of communicating services and customizing behaviors and interfaces for services invocations through a plurality of terminals interfaced to the Internet, comprising the steps of:

transmitting, by a requesting user through one of said plurality of terminals, a request for a necessary service including an identifier (ID) for identifying a terminal type of the one of said plurality of terminals;

receiving, by a Service Enabling server connected to the Internet, the request, wherein each of said plurality of terminals are configured to independently access the Service Enabling server;

upon receiving the request by the Service Enabling server, selecting, by the Service Enabling server, a necessary service requested by the requesting user;

determining a terminal type of the one of the plurality of terminals used by the requesting user from a user profile of the requesting user stored on the Service Enabling server based on the ID, the user profile identifying preferences and terminal types used by the requesting user;

changing a form of the information relating to the necessary service that is output by the necessary service to a form that is compatible with the determined terminal type of at least one terminal of the requesting user, wherein the form that is compatible with the determined terminal type is determined from terminal capability files stored on the Service Enabling server, the terminal capability files including data representing features and profiles of various different terminals,

wherein said step of transmitting comprises buffering information, said step of buffering comprising creating a message to be sent through the communications network, wherein the message is too long to be sent at one time, specifying a continuation mark for the message and sending a part of the message with the continuation mark, sending a remaining part of the message omitting the continuation mark, receiving the message parts at the Service Enabling server and combining the message parts to create the message without the continuation mark, and sending the message to a destination in the communications network.

34. The method of claim 33, further comprising the step of receiving a client protocol by the Service Enabling server the request for the information relating to the necessary service and wherein the Service Enabling server further creates HTTP requests and converts HTTP responses to the HTTP requests to the client protocol.

35. The method of claim 34, further comprising the step of outputting the information in WML content and converting the WML content to SMS content.

36. The method of claim 34, further comprising the step of outputting the information in HTML content and converting the HTML content to WML content.

37. The method of claim 34, further comprising the step of outputting the information in HTML content and converts the HTML content to SMS content.

38. The method of claim 34, further comprising the step of cutting content from the information and sending only an amount of the information which fits a display on the at least one terminal in the plurality of terminals, and wherein the user sends a new query to the Service Enabling server in response to the cut content and the at least one terminal receives a next portion of content that includes an identifier for the cut content.

39. The method of claim 33, wherein the Internet includes a service-providing server, said method further comprising the step of creating a selection list with selection list identifiers including the sub-steps of:

initiating and maintaining a session in the service-providing server by one of the plurality of terminals and mapping between the selection list identifiers and corresponding service requests;

sending the selection list from the service-providing server to the one of the plurality of terminals;

displaying the selection list on a display of said one of said plurality of terminals;

answering from the one of the plurality of terminals in response to the selection list with at least one selection list identifier;

mapping the at least one selection list identifier to the selection list in the service-providing server and initiating the corresponding service request on the server; and

receiving, by the one of the plurality of terminals, information relating to the service request.

40. The method of claim 33, further comprising the steps of:

changing the form of the information relating to the necessary service requested by the user to a second form that is compatible with at least one of a second terminal of the plurality of terminals;

defining the second terminal by a user'"'"'s profile in the Service Enabling server; and

transmitting the information relating to the necessary service to the second terminal.

41. The system of claim 33, wherein the user profile further comprises user identity, current terminal being used by the requesting user to access the Service Enabling server, aliases of commands, status and the location of the requesting user.

42. A method of communicating services and customizing behaviors and interfaces for services invocations through a plurality of terminals interfaced to the Internet, comprising the steps of:

transmitting, by a requesting user through one of said plurality of terminals, a request for a necessary service including an identifier (ID) for identifying a terminal type of the one of said plurality of terminals;

receiving, by a Service Enabling server connected to the Internet, the request, wherein each of said plurality of terminals are configured to independently access the Service Enabling server;

upon receiving the request by the Service Enabling server, selecting, by the Service Enabling server, a necessary service requested by the requesting user;

determining a terminal type of the one of the plurality of terminals used by the requesting user from a user profile of the requesting user stored on the Service Enabling server based on the ID, the user profile identifying preferences and terminal types used by the requesting user;

changing a form of the information relating to the necessary service that is output by the necessary service to a form that is compatible with the determined terminal type of at least one terminal of the requesting user, wherein the form that is compatible with the determined terminal type is determined from terminal capability files stored on the Service Enabling server, the terminal capability files including data representing features and profiles of various different terminals,

wherein said step of transmitting comprises buffering information, said step of buffering comprising sending the request to the Service Enabling server from one of said plurality of terminals, sending from the Service Enabling server at least a start of a message corresponding to the request, and placing a mark in the Service Enabling server at an end of the message to indicate that the message is continued in a next message to be sent from the Service Enabling server, if further requested within a time limit.

43. A method of communicating services and customizing behaviors and interfaces for services invocations through a plurality of terminals interfaced to the Internet, comprising the steps of:

transmitting, by a requesting user through one of said plurality of terminals, a request for a necessary service including an identifier (ID) for identifying a terminal type of the one of said plurality of terminals;

receiving, by a Service Enabling server connected to the Internet, the request, wherein each of said plurality of terminals are configured to independently access the Service Enabling server;

upon receiving the request by the Service Enabling server, selecting, by the Service Enabling server, a necessary service requested by the requesting user;

determining a terminal type of the one of the plurality of terminals used by the requesting user from a user profile of the requesting user stored on the Service Enabling server based on the ID, the user profile identifying preferences and terminal types used by the requesting user;

changing a form of the information relating to the necessary service that is output by the necessary service to a form that is compatible with the determined terminal type of at least one terminal of the requesting user, wherein the form that is compatible with the determined terminal type is determined from terminal capability files stored on the Service Enabling server, the terminal capability files including data representing features and profiles of various different terminals,

wherein the Internet includes a service-providing server, said method further comprising the step of performing session management including the sub-steps of;

accessing an application in the service-providing server from a first terminal of the plurality of terminals to establish a session;

maintaining the session in the service providing server;

identifying a user requesting access to the session and the service-providing server from a second terminal of the plurality of terminals;

joining the user from the second terminal to the session;

converting the protocols from the first terminal to the second terminal to continue the session; and

terminating access to the session from the first terminal.

44. A method of communicating services and customizing behaviors and interfaces for services invocations through a plurality of terminals interfaced to the Internet, comprising the steps of:

transmitting, by a requesting user through one of said plurality of terminals, a request for a necessary service including an identifier (ID) for identifying a terminal type of the one of said plurality of terminals;

receiving, by a Service Enabling server connected to the Internet, the request, wherein each of said plurality of terminals are configured to independently access the Service Enabling server;

upon receiving the request by the Service Enabling server, selecting, by the Service Enabling server, a necessary service requested by the requesting user;

determining a terminal type of the one of the plurality of terminals used by the requesting user from a user profile of the requesting user stored on the Service Enabling server based on the ID, the user profile identifying preferences and terminal types used by the requesting user;

changing a form of the information relating to the necessary service that is output by the necessary service to a form that is compatible with the determined terminal type of at least one terminal of the requesting user, wherein the form that is compatible with the determined terminal type is determined from terminal capability files stored on the Service Enabling server, the terminal capability files including data representing features and profiles of various different terminals, and

further comprising the steps of requesting a service, by the requesting user, using a first terminal, and sending in response to the request, by the Service Enabling server, information related to the requested service to a second terminal of the user instead of the first terminal based on the user profile which defines the second terminal as an output terminal for that service.