System and method for processing syndication information for a mobile device

• US 8,620,988 B2
• Filed: 03/23/2005
• Issued: 12/31/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/23/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: Sohm, Mark, Emery, Jennifer, Clewley, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Daftuar, Saket K
• Application Number:
  US11/086,373
• Publication Number:
  US 20060217126A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,205 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206, 709/201, 709/203, 709/204, 709/217, 709/218, 709/219, 709/230, 709/231, 709/238, 709/202, 709/223, 709/224, 709/225, 709/227, 709/229, 725/105, 725/45, 725/46, 725/47, 725/48, 725/50, 725/53, 725/56, 370/330, 370/478, 370/337, 370/341, 370/347, 370/348, 370/241, 370/328, 455/31.1, 455/31.2, 455/31.3, 455/403, 455/54.1, 455/454, 455/412, 455/412.1, 403/325, 715/501.1, 715/733, 715/738, 715/740, 715764-765, 715744-749, 340/825.44, 340/825.47, 707/3, 707/10, 707/104.1, 707/999.003, 707/999.01, 707/E17.108, 707/E17.111
• US Class Current: 709/201
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/7243 with interactive means for internal management of messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/9994 Distributed or remote access

Abstract

A system and method for processing syndication information for a mobile device that includes: identifying a plurality of syndication servers to which a user of the mobile device subscribes; polling, at a first predetermined interval, the plurality of syndication servers to determine if syndication information on each the syndication server has been updated; if the syndication information has been updated, requesting and receiving updated syndication information; adapting the updated syndication information into a predetermined format, and sending the adapted syndication information to the mobile device. The sending of the adapted syndication information may also be performed at a predetermined interval. The predetermined format preferably uses less data and requires less processing than the original format.

Claims

1. A method on a news aggregation server for providing syndicated news articles to a mobile device, said method comprising:

said news aggregation server periodically polling a plurality of XML news syndication servers, at a server configured periodic interval, to obtain updated news articles from each of said plurality of XML news syndication servers;

said news aggregation server receiving subscription information associated with the mobile device, the subscription information;

identifying at least one subscriber-specified XML news syndication server from the plurality of XML news syndication servers,

indicating a subscriber-specified maximum number of updated news articles for each of the at least one subscriber-specified XML news syndication server, wherein said XML news syndication server is a server that performs formatting of news syndication information into an XML format, wherein the news syndication information is to be displayed on the mobile device, and

indicating a subscriber-specified periodic interval for how frequently to send updated news articles to the mobile device;

said news aggregation server determining, based on the subscription information, an aggregated list of updated news articles from the at least one subscriber-specified XML news syndication server, the aggregated list of updated news articles comprises up to the subscriber-specified maximum number of updated news articles that have not been previously sent to the mobile device;

said news aggregation server generating, based on the aggregated list of updated news articles, a mobile syndication document in a predetermined format optimized for wireless delivery to the mobile device, the mobile syndication document comprising at least a title and a news portion extracted from each updated news article in the aggregated list of updated news articles; and

said news aggregation server sending the mobile syndication document to the mobile device via a wireless communication network at the subscriber-specified periodic interval.

2. A method on a news aggregation server, said method comprising:

said news aggregation server maintaining a syndication server listing that identifies a plurality of XML news syndication servers;

said news aggregation server receiving and storing subscription information for a corresponding mobile device, the subscription information;

identifying at least one subscriber-specified XML news syndication server from the plurality of XML news syndication servers,

indicating a subscriber-specified maximum number of updated news articles for each of the at least one subscriber-specified XML news syndication server, wherein said XML news syndication server is a server that performs formatting of news syndication information into an XML format, wherein the news syndication information is to be displayed on the mobile device, and

indicating a subscriber-specified periodic interval for how frequently to send updated news articles to the corresponding mobile device;

said news aggregation server polling each XML news syndication server identified in the syndication server listing at a server-configured periodic polling interval associated with each syndication server, said polling to obtain updated syndication information from each XML news syndication server;

said news aggregation server aggregating updated syndication information from said plurality of XML news syndication servers to prepare an aggregated set list of up to the subscriber-specified maximum number of updated news articles from the at least one subscriber-specified XML news syndication server based on the subscription information for the corresponding mobile device;

said news aggregation server generating a mobile syndication document with the aggregated list of updated news articles adapted into a predetermined format optimized for wireless delivery; and

said news aggregation server sending the mobile syndication document from the news aggregation server to the corresponding mobile device via a wireless communication network at the subscriber-specified periodic interval if the at least one subscriber-specified XML news syndication server has been updated since a previous mobile syndication document was sent to the corresponding mobile device.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

said news aggregation server parsing the updated syndication information to obtain headlines and descriptions of updated news articles.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein said mobile syndication document includes a title and a news article description for one of the updated news articles.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein said predetermined format is HTML format.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the server-configured periodic polling interval is set by a system administrator.