Notification of a user device to perform an action

• US 8,700,005 B1
• Filed: 06/14/2007
• Issued: 04/15/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/21/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kiraly, Kenneth P., Ryan, Thomas A., Zehr, Gregg Elliott, Lattyak, John, Rykov, Michael V., Bajaj, Girish Bansilal, Slezak, James C., Zagorie, Aviram, Moore, Richard, Cheung, Kevin R., Fruchterman, Thomas M. J., Goodwin, Robert L.
• Primary Examiner(s): RAMPURIA, SHARAD K
• Application Number:
  US11/763,376
• Time in Patent Office: 2,497 Days
• Field of Search: 4554121-415, 455418-420, 455/567
• US Class Current: 455/412.2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/325 Power saving in peripheral device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/31 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/109 by using specially-adapted hardware at the client
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/1235 with control of digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70

Abstract

An item-providing system supplies items to a user device for consumption at the user device via communication infrastructure. The device may correspond to a book reader device or other type of device. In one illustrative case, the item-providing system may send a notification message to the user device to notify the user device to wake up and perform one or more actions. The item-providing system may provide scheduling functionality for determining the timing at which to send the notification message.

Claims

1. An item-providing system to provide items for consumption by a user operating a user device, the item-providing system comprising:

an item delivery system coupled to the user device by communication infrastructure that uses, at least in part, wireless communication, the item delivery system configured to;

provide items for consumption by a user operating a user device, wherein the item delivery system is coupled to the user device by communication infrastructure that uses, at least in part, wireless communication,

send a notification message to the user device to notify the user device to access a list accessible to the item-providing system, the list identifying at least one instruction for the user device to perform;

receive a request from the user device at least partly responsive to the notification message using a data-type channel, wherein the request is to forward the at least one instruction to the user device;

forward the at least one instruction to the user device using the data-type channel at least partly in response to the request; and

receive an instruction from the user device to remove one or more entries from the list, the one or more entries of the list corresponding to the at least one instruction forwarded to the user device.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the notification message is a telephone ring.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one instruction corresponds to downloading an item, wherein the item-delivery system is configured to deliver the item to the user device using the data-type channel.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the user device is an electronic book reader-type device, and wherein the item is consumable using the electronic book reader-type device.

5. A method for interacting with a user device, using, at least in part, wireless communication, comprising:

sending a notification message to the user device to notify the user device to access a list accessible to an item-providing system, the list identifying at least one instruction for the user device to perform;

receiving a request from the user device at least partly responsive to the notification message using a data-type channel, wherein the request is to forward the at least one instruction to the user device;

forwarding the at least one instruction to the user device using the data-type channel at least partly in response to the request; and

receiving an instruction from the user device to remove one or more entries from the list, the one or more entries of the list corresponding to the at least one instruction forwarded to the user device.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the notification message is a telephone ring.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the at least one instruction corresponds to downloading an item.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising delivering the item to the user device using the data-type channel.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the user device is an electronic book reader-type device, and wherein the item is consumable using the electronic book reader-type device.

10. One or more non-transitory machine-readable media containing machine-readable instructions for implementing:

the method of claim 5.

11. One or more computing devices, comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory to store computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, perform the method of claim 5.

12. A user device for receiving items from an item-providing system for consumption by a user operating the user device, comprising:

a device processing module coupled to the item-providing system by communication infrastructure that uses, at least in part, wireless communication, the device processing module configured to;

receive a notification message sent by the item-providing system, the notification message notifying the user device to access a list identifying at least one instruction for the user device to perform;

send a request to the item providing system at least partly responsive to the notification message using a data-type channel, wherein the request is to forward the at least one instruction to the user device;

receive the at least one instruction from the item providing system via the data-type channel at least partly in response to the request; and

send an instruction to the item-providing system to remove one or more entries from the list, the one or more entries of the list corresponding to the at least one instruction received from the item-providing system.

13. The user device of claim 12, wherein the notification message is a telephone ring.

14. The user device of claim 13, wherein the user device is configured to respond to the telephone ring without answering the telephone ring and without incurring an associated fee.

15. The user device of claim 12, wherein the user device includes a power management module, wherein the power management module is configured to transition from a first power state to a second power state in response to the receipt of the notification message, wherein the first power state consumes less power than the second power state.

16. The user device of claim 12, wherein the at least one instruction corresponds to downloading an item.

17. The user device of claim 16, wherein the device processing module is configured to download the item using the data-type channel.

18. A method, performed by a user device, for interacting with an item-providing system, using, at least in part, wireless communication, comprising:

receiving a notification message from the item-providing system, wherein the item-providing system sends the notification message to notify the user device to access a list identifying at least one instruction for the user device to perform;

sending a request to the item-providing system at least partly responsive to the notification message using a data-type channel, wherein the request is to forward the at least one instruction to the user device;

receiving the at least one instruction from the item-providing system via the data-type channel at least partly in response to the request; and

sending an instruction to the item-providing system to remove one or more entries from the list, the one or more entries of the list corresponding to the at least one instruction received from the item-providing system.

19. One or more non-transitory machine-readable media containing machine-readable instructions for implementing the method of claim 18.

20. One or more computing devices, comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory to store computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, perform the method of claim 18.

21. An item-providing system to provide items for consumption by a user operating an electronic book reader-type device, the item-providing system comprising:

a content reception system configured to receive electronic books from one or more content sources and store the electronic books in a content store;

a merchant store module configured to add an entry to a list associated with the electronic book reader-type device, wherein the list includes a plurality of entries and the entry includes an instruction for the electronic book reader-type device to download an electronic book purchased by the user and stored in the content store; and

an item delivery system coupled to the electronic book reader-type device by communication infrastructure that uses, at least in part, wireless communication, the item delivery system configured to;

send a notification message to the electronic book reader-type device to notify the electronic book reader-type device to access the list associated with the electronic book reader-type device at least partly in response to the user of the electronic reader-type device purchasing the electronic book;

generate an index for the electronic book, the index linking component parts of the electronic book to respective locations of the component parts in the electronic book; and

provide information to the electronic book reader-type device indicating whether or not the index is available for download.

22. An electronic book reader-type device for receiving items from an item-providing system, the electronic book reader-type device comprising:

a store interaction module configured to purchase an electronic book from the item-providing system;

a device processing module coupled to the item-providing system by communication infrastructure that uses, at least in part, wireless communication, and the device processing module is configured to;

receive a notification message sent by the item-providing system, the notification message notifying the electronic book reader-type device to transition to a prescribed power state and to access a list associated with the electronic book reader-type device;

send a request at least partly in response to the notification message to obtain an instruction from an entry of the list to download the electronic book from the item-providing system;

receive an instruction from the item providing system to download the electronic book;

send, at least partly in response to receiving the instruction to download the electronic book, a request to the item providing system to download the electronic book; and

receive the electronic book and information from the item providing system, the information indicating whether or not the item providing system stores an index corresponding to the electronic book, whether or not the item providing system stores one or more annotations for the electronic book, or both.

23. A method for providing an entry to a user device, comprising:

maintaining, by an item-providing system, a queue associated with a the user device, the queue including a list of entries that includes one of more first instructions for the user device to perform one or more actions;

determining, by the item-providing system, a schedule according to which to send a notification message;

initiating communication with the user device by sending, to the user device according to the schedule, the notification message to notify the user device that a new entry is added to the list of entries;

receiving, from the user device and at least partly in response to the notification message, a request to forward the list of entries to the user device; and

forwarding the list of entries to the user device at least partly in response to the request.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein an opportunity to send the notification message occurs at predetermined times, wherein the determining the schedule ascertains whether a predetermined time of the predetermined times has arrived.

25. The method of claim 23, wherein at least one part of a day is favored over at least one other part of the day to send a notification message, wherein the determining the schedule ascertains whether a preferred part of the day has arrived.

26. The method of claim 23, wherein the determining the schedule is based on an amount of time that has elapsed since sending a prior notification message.

27. The method of claim 23, wherein the determining the schedule is based on a number of notification messages that have been sent in a recent span of time.

28. The method of claim 23, wherein the determining the schedule is based on an amount of time that the new entry has been added to the first list without having sent a notification message.

29. The method of claim 23, wherein the determining the schedule is based on a consideration of a cost associated with sending the notification message.

30. The method of claim 23, wherein the determining the schedule is based on a consideration of a number of notification messages in the first list.

31. The method of claim 23, wherein the notification message is associated with an instruction to download an identified item.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein the determining the schedule is based on an assigned priority associated with the identified item.

33. The method of claim 31, wherein the determining the schedule is based on a type of item associated with the identified item.

34. The method of claim 31, wherein the determining the schedule is based on a consideration of whether a user of the user device expressly selected the identified item or whether the identified item was added to the list based on an automated routine.

35. The method of claim 31, wherein the determining the schedule is based on a size of the identified item.

36. The method of claim 23, wherein the determining the schedule is based on a consideration of how recently a user of the user device made an action that prompted the new entry to be added to the list.

37. The method of claim 23, further comprising ascertaining prior behavior of a user who operates the user device, wherein the determining the schedule is based on the prior behavior of the user.

38. The method of claim 23, further comprising ascertaining a power-related state of the user device, wherein the determining the schedule is based on the power-related state.

39. One or more non-transitory machine-readable media containing machine-readable instructions for implementing the method of claim 23.

40. One or more computing devices, comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory to store computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, perform the method of claim 23.

41. A method for providing an item to a user device, comprising:

identifying an event that initiates a process of downloading an item to a user device;

determining, at least partly in response to identifying the event, a status of an entry including an instruction to download the item, wherein the entry is included in a list of entries associated with the user device;

sending, to the user device, a notification message when the status of the entry indicates that the instruction to download the item is ready to be sent to the user device, the notification message notifying the user device to access the entry of the list of entries associated with the user device;

receiving, from the user device and at least partly in response to the notification message, a request to forward the list of entries to the user device; and

forwarding, to the user device and at least partly in response to the request, the list of entries.

42. One or more non-transitory machine-readable media containing machine-readable instructions for implementing the method of claim 41.

43. One or more computing devices, comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory to store computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, perform the method of claim 41.

44. An item-providing system, comprising:

a list server module configured to;

maintain a first list of entries for a first user device and a second list of entries for a second user device, the first list of entries including at least one entry that includes an instruction that is different from an instruction of at least one entry of the second list of entries;

send a notification message to the user device to notify the first user device that a new entry is added to the list of entries;

receive a request by the first user device, at least partly in response to the notification message, to access at least one part of the first list of entries, wherein each entry in the at least one part provides an instruction for the first user device to perform an identified action;

provide the at least one part of the first list to the first user device at least partly in response to the request; and

scheduling functionality configured to determine a timing at which to send the notification message.