AU2007100840A4 - SMS message authentication - Google Patents

Description

31/08 2007 17:15 FAX COLLISON CO IP AUST CANBERRA 2048/071 0 584741P DIA:FKD 0 N P/00/011 SRegulation 3.2

AUSTRALIA

Patents Act 1990 INNOVATION PATENT SPECIFICATION FOR AN INVENTION 00 0O 0 C

ORIGINAL

Name of Applicant: MGM WIRELESS HOLDINGS PTY LTD Actual Inventor: MARK FORTUNATOW Address for Service: COLLISON CO.,117 King William Street, Adelaide, S.A. 5000 Invention Title: SMS MESSAGE

AUTHENTICATION

The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to us: COMS ID No: ARCS-159257 Received by IP Australia: Time 16:52 Date 2007-08-31 31/08 2007 17:15 FAX COLLISON CO IP AUST CANBERRA 1049/071 o 2 SFIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a method for remote wireless retrieval of

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n information and more particularly, the invention is directed to a method of providing data from an information database in response to a request from a mobile device.

00 o DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART o It is knowi to have information databases that can be accessible by users Sremote to that database and that the users or subscribers can input a request to the database in order to obtain particular desired information. Such an example of the information that a user or subscriber might desire includes news, traffic, weather etc and typically this is routinely performed by the subscriber connecting to a database service provider via the Internet. This then requires that first of all the subscriber have access to an Internet connection, which can be achieved either via a computer or a mobile telephone device, neither of is which may be at all convenient, as it requires first of all the Internet connection to be made and then various levels of Web pages to browse through in order to obtain the desired information. With the advent of faster Internet connection speeds and wireless protocols, enquiry times are reduced, however, compared with messaging systems such as Short Message Service (SMS) and Multi Media Message Services (MMS) the time delays to obtaining information are still significant and ultimately the cost to the end user can be quite high due to the length of time required to obtain the information.

SMS protocols are known to be used to retrieve specific information from certain databases in that a user or subscriber can send an SMS enquiry to the service provider and the service provider then addresses the enquiry and provides a response by a return SMS. However, these systems by themselves are not practical in dealing with confidential information and typically such enquiries made by users are of a very general or unimportant nature. The SMS protocol is well known and understood in the art and is often referred to as the IS-136 protocol and it is noteworthy that there has been little investigation of COMS ID No: ARCS-159257 Received by IP Australia: Time 16:52 Date 2007-08-31 31/08 2007 17:15 FAX COLLISON CO IP AUST CANBERRA 1I050/071 o 3 0 how the Short Message Service format could be used to enhance the ability of a ;Z subscriber or user to retrieve information and in particular of information that may be confidential to a point.

An example of such information is related to the status of attendance of students at school and it is known for service providers to be able to provide 00 information regarding a student's status at school to the parent of that student.

0 Typically, such messages are sent via SMS when the school has collated a list of absent and attending students for the day and that list is provided to a o database administrator who then sends messages to the parents of the students that have failed to attend, notifying them of the absenteeism.

However, there are instances where the parent would like to know or confirm that their child had in fact attended school that day as the previous system mentionec only sends SMS messages to the parents of students who were absent. For example, the parents of young children who are perhaps travelling to school by themselves often make voice telephone calls to the administration staff of the school to enquire whether or not their student made it to school on that particular day. Such assurances can be quite important to parents with young children.

However, the process of making and receiving such telephone enquiries is time intensive on both the parent making the call and the school administration desk receiving the call, in that first of all the parent has to locate the school's telephone number and go through the process of obtaining the right person to provide the right information, which may result in the parent being put on hold for a undetermined period of time. On the school administration end of the call, this may result in a particular staff member having to field a great number of calls during the day, enquiring as to whether or not a student has attended school and then having to deal with other, perhaps unrelated matters with the parent at the same time. This use of time is perhaps secondary to many functions of the school administration system, particularly for those schools that are under-resourced and cannot afford the time or personnel to provide this information.

COMS ID No: ARCS-159257 Received by IP Australia: Time 16:52 Date 2007-08-31 31/08 2007 17:16 FAX COLLISON C0 IP AUST CANBERRA I051/071 o 4 OBJECT OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for wireless retrieval n that allows users or subscribers to easily obtain information specific to their needs.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system and method 00 that facilitates access to an informational database from a mobile phone or odevice.

oIt is an object of the present invention to overcome, or at least substantially ameliorate, the disadvantages and shortcomings of the prior art.

Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description, taking in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein, by way of illustration and example, an embodiment of the present invention is disclosed.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, although this should not be seen as limiting the invention in any way, there is provided a method of providing data from an informational database, including the steps of receiving a message from a mobile station over a wireless network, receiving an identifier of the mobile station, using the identifier to access a subscriber or user's profile, the message including a variable enquiry, processing the variable enquiry to correspond to specific data, then transmitting to the mobile station SMS formatted data that corresponds to the specific data of the variable enquiry.

In preference, the identifier of the mobile station is the mobile phone number.

In preference, the specific data is provided by either the subscriber or a third party.

In preference, the identifier is a mobile identification number, such as a mobile telephone number.

COMS ID No: ARCS-159257 Received by IP Australia: Time 16:52 Date 2007-08-31 31/08 2007 17:16 FAX COLLISON CO IP AUST CANBERRA R052/071 t"- SIn preference, the variable enquiry is selected from the group consisting of ;Z attendee status, current events, news items, sports locations, sporting events, closure dates, sports results and assignment deadlines.

In preference, the specific data can be entered into the informational database via a Web interface.

0 0DETAILEC, DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION There is a informational database 5 having on it information provided to it by 0 personal subscribers 7 or institutional subscribers 9, noting that in order for the personal sjbscriber 7 to have access to the informational database 5, they must first pre-register 10 with.the institutional subscriber 9 that they are associated with. An example of the institutional subscriber 9 would be a school, where the school has a number of students 13, with each student having a parent or guardian 7 that is legally responsible for them and wherein that legal guardian 7 is registered 10 with the school 9.

In order to correctly identify each legal guardian, the legal guardian registers with the school their mobile phone number, referred to as a calling number identification 15. It is noted that under the SMS format, each message has attached to it, its original calling number identification 15 unique to the mobile phone 12. By then correlating that calling number identification 15 of the mobile phone 12, it is then possible to identify the parent or guardian 7 and subsequentlY their children 13. This is the first essential element to the correct identification of individuals that have pro-registered with the school or institutional subscriber 9.

Each morning at school, a teacher or person of authority marks a roll indicating which students 13 are present or absent. Additionally, the roll 20 may also indicate students who are late. Depending on the frequency of updates of the roll 20 that are required to produce the attendance data 22.

This attendance data 22 is then put into a database 24 that may either reside at the school in the form of a school management system or alternatively it may be directly input into a informational database 5, depending upon the setup.

COMS ID No: ARCS-159257 Received by IP Australia: Time 16:52 Date 2007-08-31 31/08 2007 17:16 FAX COLLISON CO t IP AUST CANBERRA a053/071 o 6 Once the appropriate attendance data 22 has been entered into the ;Z informational database 5, it is then possible for personal subscribers 7 to make enquiries as to the relevant attendance status of their children. This is achieved ^c by sending a SMS message 26 to a predefined number requesting the status of attendance of their child. This would be done in a shorthand manner, such as 0 with the iotation in the SMS message being I"ATTENDANCE", which 0 0 effectively translates to the inquiry: "has my child arrived at school?" The informational database 5 first checks the calling number identification o that is the telephone number of the SMS, and checks to see that the number has been registered 10 with the institutional subscriber 9, and if so then collates details of the student or students 13 that are registered with that caller identification number 15 and their most recent attendance status 22 and then formats that information Into a SMS 28, which is then sent back to the registered number of the parent or guardian 7. In this way then, it is quick and easy for a parent or guardian 7 to send an enquiry regarding the status 22 of the studert 13 to the informational database 5, which can then quickly respond, taking the data provided to it by the school 24.

In addition to the attendance enquiry, it is also possible using the current invention to make other enquiries regarding the activities of the students belonging to a particular parent or guardian. For example, if the child or student is booked to attend extra curricular activities, such as after school care or preorganised events happening outside regular school hours, such as music lessons or sporting events, it would be possible for the parent to make a specific enquiry d rected towards that event. An example of this would be where a parent w-ose child is required to attend music lessons after school and the parent wculd send an SMS to a predefined number with the query "MUSIC" effectively asking the question, "did my child attend music class?" Again, as previously, the informational database 5 receives the SMS query from the parent with the accompanying calling number identification 15 and, after checking that that number is registered for the service, then collates the data on the database relevant to the enquiry and, in this instance, sends a return SMS message advising the parent of the student's attendance at the music class.

COMS ID No: ARCS-159257 Received by IP Australia: Time 16:52 Date 2007-08-31 31/08 2007 1717 FAX COLLISON CO IP AUST CANBERRA Ia054/071 o 7 The detail of the possible requests are dependent upon the information provided by the school to the informational database, but it is possible for the school to provide attendance information for each class, rather than simply for attendance at morning class. In this way then, it is possible for the parent to be able to track a child's attendance through the day to provide additional comfort oto them regarding the current status of their child at the school.

00 oIn additior, the current method allows for the institutional subscriber to input additional information 32 into the informational database 5 pertaining to a 0 particular student or group of students. For example, if a particular student plays football for the school, then the school would make that information available to the informational database along with, for example, information relating to the location of up coming football games.

Then, a parent wanting to know where their child's football team is playing would send a SMS message 26 to the informational database 5 such as "*SPORT LOCATION", which asks the question, "where is my child's football team playing next?" A return SMS message 28 would be sent back to the parent7, after corroborating the calling number identification 15 with details on the informational database 5, providing both location and time details for their child's 13 various registered sporting events.

As can now be clearly seen, the scope of the current invention and its application is only limited then by the degree and detail of information provided by the institutional subscribers 9.

Moreover, the method allows for the input of specific information related to that institutional subscriber via the personal subscribers 7 via a Web interface 32. In this manner then, it is possible for personal subscribers 7 to provide updates on sporting events, if they are authorised to do so. That information is then stored directly on the informational database The advantage of this system is clear in that it provides an opportunity for, in this case, parents 7 to be able to make enquiries regarding their child's 13 attendance at school when they feel the need to ask, but also enables the COMS ID No: ARCS-159257 Received by IP Australia: Time 16:52 Date 2007-08-31 31/08 2007 17:17 FAX COLLISON CO IP AUST CANBERRA a055/071 ro 8 school 9 to provide additional information to the parent 7 in a quick and efficient ;Z manner, without unnecessarily diverting school resources away from their core activities and in addition provides information to the parent on demand.

Although the invention has been herein shown and described in what is conceived to be the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is recognized 0c that departures can be made within the scope of the invention, which is not to Sbe limited 'o the details described herein but it is to be accorded the full scope Sof the appended claims so as to embrace any and all equivalent devices and 0 apparatus.

Oi COMS ID No: ARCS-159257 Received by IP Australia: Time 16:52 Date 2007-08-31

Claims (5)

1. A method of providing data from an informational database, including the C c steps of: o a. receiving a message from a mobile station over a wireless 00 5 network; b. receiving an identifier of the mobile station; Sc. using the identifier to access a subscriber or user's profile; d. the message including a variable enquiry; e. processing the variable enquiry to correspond to specific data; and 1. then transmitting to the mobile station SMS formatted data that corresponds to the specific data of the variable enquiry.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the specific data is provided by either the subscriber or a third party.

3. The method of any one of claims 1 or 2, wherein the identifier is a mobile identification number, such as a mobile telephone number.

4. The method of any one of claims 1 3, wherein the variable enquiry is selected from the group consisting of attendee status, current events, news items, sports locations, sporting events, closure dates, sports results and assignment deadlines.

5. The method of any one of claims 1 4, wherein the specific data can be entered into the informational database via a Web interface. COMS ID No: ARCS-159257 Received by IP Australia: Time 16:52 Date 2007-08-31