Method of transmitting multimedia message in various service environments

• US 7,792,520 B2
• Filed: 07/01/2004
• Issued: 09/07/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/14/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SK Planet Co., Ltd. (SK Telecom Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: SK Telecom Co., Ltd.
• Inventors: Yun, Hong-Seo, Na, Dong-Won, Yoon, Ja-Young, Sohn, Sang-Mok
• Primary Examiner(s): Corsaro; Nick
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lebassi; Amanuel
• Application Number:
  US10/578,995
• Publication Number:
  US 20070275688A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,259 Days
• Field of Search: 455/70, 455418-420, 455/466, 709/203, 709214-219, 709226-229
• US Class Current: 455/418
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/184 Messaging devices, e.g. message centre

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a method of transmitting a multimedia message in a mobile communication system, which allows a receiving terminal to access an MMS server suitable for its specification and receive a stored multimedia message, even when a single MMS server is not equipped with all types of media conversion functions corresponding to all specifications of the receiving terminals. According to the invention, the MMS server stores a multimedia message transmitted from a transmitting terminal in a common message storage unit, and ascertains the specification of a receiving terminal while informing the receiving terminal of the arrival of the message. The MMS server includes in a notice message the address of an MMS server that services media data reproducible by the receiving terminal and informs the receiving terminal of the arrival of the multimedia message.

Claims

1. A method of transmitting a multimedia message in a system having at least two Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) servers having different versions according to the media types of multimedia messages they service, comprising the steps of:

storing a received multimedia message in a common message storage unit when a first MMS server receives the multimedia message from a transmitting terminal;

ascertaining specification of a receiving terminal using information of the receiving terminal included in a header of the multimedia message by the first MMS server;

including in a notice message to the receiving terminal both an address of a second MMS server and message information stored in the common message storage unit, and informing the receiving terminal of arrival of the new multimedia message when the receiving terminal is ascertained as a terminal incapable of reproducing the multimedia message provided from the first MMS server and the receiving terminal is ascertained as a terminal capable of reproducing the multimedia message provided from the second MMS server;

including in a notice message to the receiving terminal both an address of the first MMS server and message information stored in the common message storage unit and informing the receiving terminal of arrival of the new multimedia message, when the receiving terminal is ascertained as a terminal capable of reproducing the multimedia message provided from the first MMS server; and

processing the multimedia message stored in the common message storage unit in response to a request from the receiving terminal and transmitting processed results to the receiving terminal.

2. The multimedia message transmitting method according to claim 1, wherein each of the first and second MMS servers separates the multimedia message transmitted from the transmitting terminal according to types of media data included in the multimedia message and stores the separated media data in a same folder when storing the multimedia message in the common message storage unit.

3. The multimedia message transmitting method according to claim 2, wherein the processing of the multimedia message is performed so that the first or second MMS server selectively reads out the media data of the multimedia message stored in the common message storage unit, converts the media data into multimedia message data format reproducible by the receiving terminal, and transmits the converted multimedia message data.

4. The multimedia message transmitting method according to claim 1, wherein one of the first and second MMS servers includes a server providing a SML multimedia messaging service for transmitting a SML multimedia message, the SML multimedia message being created using a template, the template including text, image, background music and voice menu items and an image production menu item.

5. The multimedia message transmitting method according to claim 4, wherein the template provides a function of previewing a produced image when the image is produced using the image production menu item.

6. The multimedia message transmitting method according to claim 4, wherein the template includes a function of controlling display format of the input text.