Conditional message forwarding functions

• US 9,843,909 B2
• Filed: 01/14/2016
• Issued: 12/12/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Fan, James, Barrett, Thomas, Lam, Jennifer K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Eisner, Ronald
• Application Number:
  US14/996,100
• Publication Number:
  US 20160135022A1
• Time in Patent Office: 698 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/12 Messaging; Mailboxes; Announcements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/24 Accounting or billing

Abstract

Message forwarding by communication devices is conditionally and/or automatically controlled. A network message management component and/or handset message management component can monitor messages (e.g., short message service (SMS) messages) communicated between user equipment (UE) in a communication network, identify and/or intercept a message for which one or more forwarding conditions have been specified by the message originator, target, or forward target, and conditionally and/or automatically route the message to the target and/or forward target in accordance with predefined message routing rules based at least in part on the conditions specified by the originator, target, or forward target. The predefined message routing rules can be implemented by the network and/or the UEs, and can relate to the UE identifiers, time, priority, cost, operation state, size, desired automatic response messages, or other desired factors, associated with the message.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising;

in connection with a message communicated from a first device to a second device, determining whether

forwarding a copy of the message to a third device will result in a cost being incurred based on subscription information associated with a subscription that relates to a messaging service, wherein the subscription information indicates whether the forwarding of the copy of the message to the third device will incur the cost, and wherein the subscription is associated with a subscriber identity; and

determining whether to forward the copy of the message to the third device based on a message routing rule that is based on preference data corresponding to a preference of the subscriber identity, wherein the preference data indicates whether the cost is to be incurred in connection with the copy of the message being forwarded.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the message is a short message service message.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the message comprises video content.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the determining whether the forwarding of the copy of the message comprises determining whether forwarding the copy of the message to the third device will result in the cost being incurred based on the subscription information associated with the subscription and an amount of data associated with the video content.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the message comprises audio content.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the determining whether the forwarding of the copy comprises determining whether the forwarding of the copy of the message to the third device will result in a defined threshold number of messages being exceeded during a defined subscription time period associated with the subscription, and wherein the defined threshold number of messages being exceeded during the defined subscription time period results in the cost being incurred in connection with the forwarding of the copy of the message to the third device.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

analyzing second preference data corresponding to a second preference associated with the second device to facilitate the determining whether to forward the copy of the message to the third device.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the second preference data indicates that the copy of the message has been requested to be forwarded to the third device during a defined time period.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the second preference data relates to a threshold priority level for the forwarding of the copy of the message, and wherein the operations further comprise:

determining whether the message satisfies the threshold priority level to facilitate the determining whether to forward the copy of the message to the third device.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the second preference data relates to whether the forwarding of the message to the third device is permitted based on an identifier associated with the first device, and wherein the operations further comprise:

based on the second preference data, determining whether the identifier associated with the first device is in a set of identifiers for which message forwarding to the third device is permitted to facilitate the determining whether to forward the copy of the message to the third device.

18. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing, by the system, a forwarding indicator associated with the message to facilitate determining whether the transmitting of the copy of the message to the third device is prohibited by the first device, wherein the determining whether to transmit the copy of the message to the third device comprises determining whether to transmit the copy of the message to the third device based on the message routing rule and the forwarding indicator.

11. A method, comprising:

with regard to a message communicated from a first device to a second device, determining, by a system comprising a processor, whether transmitting a copy of the message to a third device will result in a cost being incurred in connection with a subscription that relates to a messaging service, wherein subscription data associated with the subscription is usable to indicate whether the transmitting of the copy of the message to the third device will incur the cost, and wherein the subscription is associated with a subscriber identity; and

determining, by the system, whether to transmit the copy of the message to the third device based on a message rule that relates to a preference of the subscriber identity, wherein the message rule indicates whether the cost is to be incurred in connection with the copy of the message being transmitted to the third device.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the message is a short message service message.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the message is a multimedia messaging service message.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein video content is associated with the message.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the video content is associated with the copy of the message, and wherein the determining whether the transmitting of the copy of the message to the third device comprises determining whether transmitting the copy of the message and the video content associated with the copy of the message to the third device will result in the cost being incurred in connection with the subscription based on a size of the video content.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining, by the system, that the transmitting the copy of the message to the third device will not result in the cost being incurred in connection with the subscription; and

determining, by the system, that the copy of the message is to be transmitted to the third device in response to the determining that the transmitting the copy of the message to the third device will not result in the cost being incurred, in accordance with the message rule.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining, by the system, that the transmitting the copy of the message to the third device will result in the cost being incurred in connection with the subscription; and

in accordance with the message rule, determining, by the system, that the copy of the message is not to be transmitted to the third device in response to determining that the transmitting the copy of the message to the third device will result in the cost being incurred.

19. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising:

in connection with a message communicated from a first device to a second device, determining whether forwarding a copy of the message to a third device will result in a cost being incurred based on a subscription that relates to a messaging service, wherein subscription information associated with the subscription is usable to indicate whether the forwarding of the copy of the message to the third device will incur the cost, and wherein the subscription is associated with a subscriber identity; and

determining whether the copy of the message is permitted to be forwarded to the third device based on a message routing rule that relates to preference data associated with a preference of the subscriber identity, and wherein the preference data indicates whether the cost is to be incurred in connection with the copy of the message being forwarded.

20. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein the operations further comprise:

determining that the forwarding of the copy of the message to the third device is not to result in the cost being incurred in connection with the subscription in response to determining that the forwarding of the copy of the message to the third device is not to result in a defined threshold number of messages associated with the subscription being exceeded during a subscription time period associated with the subscription; and

determining that the copy of the message is permitted to be forwarded to the third device in response to the determining that the forwarding of the copy of the message to the third device is not to result in the cost being incurred, in accordance with the message routing rule.