Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M1/00—Substation equipment, e.g. for use by subscribers
  • H04M1/26—Devices for calling a subscriber
  • H04M1/27—Devices whereby a plurality of signals may be stored simultaneously
  • H04M1/274—Devices whereby a plurality of signals may be stored simultaneously with provision for storing more than one subscriber number at a time, e.g. using toothed disc
  • H04M1/2745—Devices whereby a plurality of signals may be stored simultaneously with provision for storing more than one subscriber number at a time, e.g. using toothed disc using static electronic memories, e.g. chips
  • H04M1/2753—Devices whereby a plurality of signals may be stored simultaneously with provision for storing more than one subscriber number at a time, e.g. using toothed disc using static electronic memories, e.g. chips providing data content
  • H04M1/2757—Devices whereby a plurality of signals may be stored simultaneously with provision for storing more than one subscriber number at a time, e.g. using toothed disc using static electronic memories, e.g. chips providing data content by data transmission, e.g. downloading
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M1/00—Substation equipment, e.g. for use by subscribers
  • H04M1/72—Mobile telephones; Cordless telephones, i.e. devices for establishing wireless links to base stations without route selection
  • H04M1/724—User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones
  • H04M1/72403—User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones with means for local support of applications that increase the functionality
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M1/00—Substation equipment, e.g. for use by subscribers
  • H04M1/66—Substation equipment, e.g. for use by subscribers with means for preventing unauthorised or fraudulent calling
  • H04M1/663—Preventing unauthorised calls to a telephone set

Definitions

• the present invention relates generally to the field of telephony, and, more particularly, to sharing information about entities in a network of communication devices.
• Wireless communicators are being used in ever increasing numbers for voice calls, data calls, facsimile transfer, Internet access, paging, and other personal organization features such as calendar management or even travel directions via the Global Positioning System (GPS).
• GPS Global Positioning System
• wireless communicator may include a cellular radiotelephone with a multi-line display, a Personal
• PCS Communications System
• PDA Personal Digital Assistant
• Wireless communicators also may be referred to as "pervasive computing" devices.
• Such communication devices may support powerful interaction among users for such specialized applications as virtual communities or electronic commerce. These advanced capabilities may result, however, in a user having less control over communications with other users. It may be desirable, therefore, to enable communication devices, such as wireless communicators, to assist a user in finding and contacting people and/or service providers and to protect the user from being contacted by people and/or service providers with whom they do not wish to interact.
• One approach to providing a user with greater control over their communication environment is based on the use of "virtual business cards.”
• a virtual business card, as used in a communication device, such as a wireless communicator may be a data structure providing contact information and a description of services offered by a person or business.
• virtual business cards are used to represent information that an entity (e.g., a user, a business, an organization, etc.) advertises about itself and, generally, are not used to share information accumulated by one entity about another entity.
• a profile manager controls one or more profiles with each profile including a virtual filing card, and, optionally, a virtual business card.
• the virtual business card may originate from the entity with which the virtual business card is associated.
• a virtual filing card may originate from any entity that wishes to record information about some other entity.
• a virtual business card and virtual filing card associated with the same entity are, thus, paired together to comprise a profile for that entity.
• the virtual filing card includes a plurality of fields that contain information about the entity with which the virtual filing card is associated. These fields may include, but are not limited to, the following: a referent field that identifies the entity; one or more address fields that provide contact information for the entity; an address map field that correlates the address fields with situations in which the contact information is valid; a contact success field that indicates the probability that an attempt to contact the entity in a given situation will be successful; one or more service fields that identify service(s) provided by the entity; a service map field that correlates the service fields with situations in which a given service is provided; a quality field that associates quality ratings with the services preferably based on situations; and an owner field that identifies the entity associated with the communication device upon which the virtual filing card originates.
• the entity associated with the virtual filing card may be a plurality of entities comprising an entity group.
• the profile manager comprises an incoming call agent and an outgoing call agent that may communicate with complementary agents on communication devices associated with other entities to establish a communication session.
• bandwidth usage and communication latency may be reduced as the appropriate agents on a pair of communication devices may initiate and then negotiate the establishment of a call or communication session between a pair of entities without direct involvement from the entities.
• a first communication device may send a virtual filing card associated with another entity (i.e., second communication device) to a third communication device.
• virtual filing cards may facilitate the sharing of information among entities, including subjective information accumulated by one entity that pertains to another entity. The value of such subjective information may differ depending on the source.
• a virtual filing card associated with a communication device is probed before initiating a call to the communication device.
• Information from the virtual filing card may be analyzed to present a call offer to the communication device.
• the communication device in particular the incoming call agent, may choose to accept or deny the call offer.
• the virtual filing card may then be updated based on the success of the call attempt. For example, the contact success field may be updated based on the success or failure of the call offer.
• FIG. 1 is a high-level block diagram of an exemplary wireless communicator that may incorporate intelligent profile management systems, computer program products, and related methods in accordance with the present invention
• FIG. 2 is a block diagram that illustrates a processor and memory shown in FIG. 1 in greater detail;
• FIG. 3 is a block diagram that illustrates a first embodiment of a virtual filing card of FIG. 2;
• FIGS. 4 - 5 are block diagrams that illustrate an exchange of virtual filing cards of FIG. 2 between entities in accordance with the present invention
• FIG. 6 is a block diagram that illustrates a second embodiment of a virtual filing card of FIG 2;
• FIG. 7 is a block diagram that illustrates a third embodiment of a virtual filing card of FIG. 2;
• FIG. 8 is a flowchart that illustrates call initiation operations of intelligent profile management systems, computer program products, and related methods in accordance with aspects of the present invention
• FIG. 9 is a block diagram of a fourth embodiment of a virtual filing card of FIG. 2;
• FIG. 10 is a block diagram that illustrates relationships between aspects and entity groups of FIGS. 6, 7, and 9 in accordance with the present invention
• FIG. 11 is a flowchart that illustrates virtual filing card update operations of intelligent profile management systems, computer program products, and related methods in accordance with aspects of the present invention
• FIG. 12 is a block diagram that illustrates negotiation between call agents of FIG. 2; and FIG. 13 is a flowchart that illustrates call agent negotiation operations of intelligent profile management systems, computer program products, and related methods in accordance with aspects of the present invention.
• DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that there is no intent to limit the invention to the particular forms disclosed, but on the contrary, the invention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the claims.
• Like reference numbers signify like elements throughout the description of the figures.
• intelligent profile management systems, computer program products, and related methods in accordance with the present invention will be discussed hereafter as embodied in a wireless communicator. It should be understood, however, that the intelligent profile management systems, computer program products, and related methods of the present invention may be used in other types of telephony systems and devices.
• the present invention may be embodied as a communication device/system, method, or computer program product. Accordingly, the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) embodiment, or an embodiment containing both software and hardware aspects.
• the present invention may take the form of a computer program product on a computer-usable or computer- readable storage medium having computer-usable or computer-readable program code means embodied in the medium for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system.
• a computer-usable or computer- readable medium may be any means that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.
• the computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, device, or propagation medium. More specific examples (a nonexhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, and a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM).
• RAM random access memory
• ROM read-only memory
• EPROM or Flash memory erasable programmable read-only memory
• CD-ROM portable compact disc read-only memory
• the computer-usable or computer-readable medium could even be paper or another suitable medium upon which the program is printed, as the program can be electronically captured, via, for instance, optical scanning of the paper or other medium, then compiled, interpreted, or otherwise processed in a suitable manner, if necessary, and then stored in a computer memory.
• a wireless communicator 30 in accordance with the present invention typically includes a keyboard/keypad 32, a display 34, a speaker 36, a microphone 38, a transceiver 42, a ringer 44, and a memory 46 that communicate with a processor 48.
• the transceiver 42 receives incoming signals from and transmits outgoing signals to an antenna 52 and is used to establish and maintain communication with another party or destination.
• These components are included in many conventional wireless communicators or mobile terminals and their functionality is generally known to those skilled in the art.
• FIG. 2 illustrates the processor 48 and memory 46 in more detail.
• the processor 48 communicates with the memory 46 via an address/data bus 54.
• the processor 48 may be any commercially available or custom microprocessor suitable for an embedded application.
• the memory 46 is representative of the overall hierarchy of memory devices containing the software and data used to implement the functionality of the wireless communicator 30.
• the memory 46 may include, but is not limited to, the following types of devices: cache, ROM, PROM, EPROM, EEPROM, flash, SRAM, and DRAM.
• the memory 46 may hold four major categories of software and data used in the wireless communicator 30: the operating system 56; the input/output (I/O) device drivers 58; the profile manager program module 62 and one or more profiles 64.
• the operating system 56 should be designed for real time embedded applications and, preferably, is relatively compact to make efficient use of the memory 46.
• the I/O device drivers 58 typically include software routines accessed through the operating system 56 to communicate with devices such as the keyboard/keypad 32, display 34, speaker 36, microphone 38, and certain memory components.
• the profile manager program module 62 comprises programs for controlling the maintenance and use of the profiles and preferably includes an outgoing call agent 66 and an incoming call agent 68.
• the outgoing and incoming call agents 66 and 68 may be used to establish communication sessions with other communication devices having complementary agents executing thereon.
• the profiles 64 comprise collections of data associated with specific entities.
• an entity may be a person, a business, an organization, or the like.
• Each profile 64 is associated with a single entity; however, as will be discussed in greater detail hereinafter, an entity may comprise combinations of other entities (e.g., an entity group).
• each profile preferably comprises a virtual business card 72 and a virtual filing card 74.
• a virtual business card 72 may be a data structure providing contact information and a description of services that an entity has published about itself. Thus, virtual business cards 72 are definitive in that there is a unique latest version of a virtual business card 72 for any entity that has published a virtual business card 72. Similar to a virtual business card 72, a virtual filing card 74 may also comprise a data structure for storing information about the entity with which the virtual filing card 74 is associated. A virtual filing card 74, however, may originate from any entity that wishes to record information about some other entity.
• Computer program code for carrying out operations of the profile manager program module 62 is preferably written in a high-level programming language, such as C, Java, Smalltalk, or C++.
• the virtual business cards 72 and virtual filing cards 74 are preferably implemented as declarative specifications using a passive language, such as the hypertext markup language (HTML) or the extensible markup language (XML).
• a virtual business card 72 for an entity may indicate that the person should only be called at work on Tuesday af ernoons.
• Another entity may create a virtual filing card 74 for the person that, based on personal experience, indicates that calls in the early afternoon on Tuesday are never answered. Therefore, an entity having a profile 64 for the person with both the virtual business card 72 and the virtual filing card 74 may benefit by waiting until later afternoon on Tuesdays before attempting to call the person.
• a service provider may publish a virtual business card 72 declaring that it offers graphic art services.
• Another entity may create a virtual filing card 74 that indicates the service provider is best for technical drawings and not for advertising copy.
• the additional information provided by the virtual filing card 74 may assist a user in contacting a graphic artist based on the user's needs in a particular situation.
• Virtual business cards 72 and virtual filing cards 74 are generally maintained differently by the profile manager program module 62.
• a virtual business card 72 is generally updated only when their originator provides new information (i.e., the entity with which the business card is associated).
• a virtual filing card 74 may be updated locally by an entity holding or storing the virtual filing card 74 without restriction. This capability of selecting what information to store in a virtual filing card 74 and when to update that information may provide greater flexibility in an entity's interactions with other entities.
• the virtual filing card 74 may include a plurality of data fields as follows: a referent field that identifies the entity with which the virtual filing card 74 is associated; an owner field that identifies the entity associated with the communication device upon which the virtual filing card 74 originates; one or more address fields that provide contact information for the entity with which the virtual filing card 74 is associated; one or more service fields that identify service(s) provided by the entity with which the virtual filing card 74 is associated; an address map field that correlates the address fields with situations in which the contact information is valid; a service map field that correlates the service fields with situations in which a given service is provided; a contact success field that indicates the probability that an attempt to contact the entity with which the virtual filing card 74 is associated in a given situation will be successful; and a quality field that associates quality ratings with the services preferably based on situations.
• a situation may refer to time, location, or urgency of the owner of
• FIGS. 4 and 5 illustrate how virtual filing cards 74 may be used to disseminate information among a network of entities/communication devices.
• entities A, B, and C are shown with each entity including a virtual filing card 74 and a virtual business card 72 on a communication device associated therewith.
• Entity A has a virtual filing card 74al (abbreviated FC) and a virtual business card 72al (abbreviated BC) about (i.e., associated with) Entity B.
• Entity B has a virtual filing card 74b 1 and a virtual business card 72b 1 about Entity A.
• Entity C has a virtual filing card 74cl and a virtual business card 72c2 about Entity A.
• the virtual filing cards 74 point to their accompanying virtual business card 72.
• a virtual filing card 74 does not repeat information contained in a virtual business card 72, but, instead, points to the virtual business card 72 for the information.
• Entity C sends a request to Entity A for a referral for Entity B.
• the profile manager program module 62 for Entity A responds by sending the virtual filing card 74al to Entity C.
• Entity C accepts the virtual filing card 74al from Entity B and the profile manager program module 62 for Entity C stores the virtual filing card 74c2 about B in its memory 46.
• virtual filing cards 74 may form the basis for a network of referrals among entities. This may be particularly beneficial because technology, in general, may lead to more impersonal means of communicating and evaluating services. For example, using conventional technology, a user may obtain a rating or critique of an entity through some standard ratings agency, such as the Better Business Bureau. Many people, however, may prefer ratings based on first-hand experience from their friends or colleagues. Using the virtual filing cards 74 in accordance with the present invention, such ratings may be exchanged electronically among a network of users. These ratings may reflect the users' personal opinions and may be shared, for example, within a network of friends. As the virtual filing cards 74 propagate through the network, they may convey information about a service to their recipient.
• some standard ratings agency such as the Better Business Bureau.
• ratings may be exchanged electronically among a network of users. These ratings may reflect the users' personal opinions and may be shared, for example, within a network of friends.
• the recipient may decide how much to modify their own rating about a particular entity, which is then reflected in the recipient's virtual filing card 74 for that particular entity.
• the virtual filing cards may embody a fully distributed form of reputation akin to the spread of reputation information in traditional human communication.
• These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer usable or computer-readable memory that may direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer usable or computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means that implement the function specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
• the computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions that execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
• the referent field of a virtual filing card 74 identifies the entity with which the virtual filing card 74 is associated.
• the entity specified in the referent field may comprise combinations of other entities (e.g., an entity group).
• an entity group may assume properties of a "list” or a "role.”
• an invocation constraint may be associated with an entity group that specifies how the entities in an entity group are to be invoked.
• FIG. 6 illustrates a virtual filing card in which the referent field includes an entity group comprising three entities: John, Jill, and Joe.
• the entity group includes the invocation constraint "all,” which means that all entities will be contacted when a call is initiated to that entity group.
• entity groups with an invocation constraint of "all” behave like a calling list. Note that the contact success field applies to all of the entities in the entity group at different times and/or situations.
• an entity group may be associated with an invocation constraint "exactly one,” which means that only one of the entities in the entity group will be contacted when a call is initiated to that entity group.
• entity groups with an invocation constraint of "exactly one” behave like a role.
• the virtual filing card 74 of FIG. 7 may be associated with an entity group called "building liaison” in which three persons— John, Jill, and Joe—may assume that role.
• An additional field called “time” has been added to the virtual filing card that specifies the times of day that John, Jill, and Joe are on duty as the building liaison. In this case, the contact success applies to the role at different times and situations.
• the building liaison role may be made to transfer routinely among the entities in the entity group.
• a user may rely on their communication device to automatically contact the correct person based on the time of day when a call is initiated to the building liaison.
• a third invocation constraint, "at least one,” may also be used to select one or more members of an entity group to be contacted when initiating a call.
• FIG. 8 illustrates how the outgoing call agent 66 may use the group entity information contained in the referent field of a virtual filing card 74 when initiating a call.
• Operations begin at block 102 where the outgoing call agent 66 examines a virtual filing card M to initiate a call.
• a determination is made at block 104 whether the referent field contains an entity group having an invocation constraint of "all.” If the referent field contains an entity group having an invocation constraint of "all,” then the outgoing call agent 66 will call all of the entities in the entity group at block 106.
• the outgoing call agent 66 will filter the entities in the entity group using some criteria to select one of the entities in the entity group at block 116. The outgoing call agent 66 will then call this unique entity at block 118.
• the referent field may contain an entity group, which may correspond, for example, to a particular role through the use of the invocation constraint "exactly one."
• a single entity will typically not have a single role in life, but instead will play several roles.
• the referent field may be expanded to include one or more aspect fields.
• An aspect is a distinct role for an entity as viewed by the entity itself.
• an entity may have different services that they offer, different contact addresses, and different availability.
• a person may serve as a technical manager, a fire drill leader, a CPR-trained emergency helper, and a neighborhood-watch block captain. Another entity might know this person in one or all of these aspects.
• the person may have different availabilities depending on the aspect in which they are being contacted. As a technical manager, the person may not wish to be contacted during regularly scheduled meetings, but if another person is calling because of a CPR emergency, then the incoming call agent 68 should accept that call. Other entities may have different ratings or opinions of an entity based on particular aspects of the entity.
• aspects may correspond to entity groups in which a particular entity is a member.
• entity groups in which a particular entity is a member.
• Joe has an aspect that he is a tennis player, which does not correspond to any entity group.
• the outgoing call agent 66 may search the virtual filing cards 74 on a communication device to find those entities that have a particular aspect. Once those virtual filing cards 74 are identified, those entities offering a particular service may be selected. Next, the outgoing call agent 66 may compare ratings for entities that offer the desired service and check the availability of those that meet some minimum rating or quality threshold before finally initiating a call.
• FIG. 11 illustrates operations for automatically updating a virtual filing card 74 in accordance with the present invention.
• Operations begin at block 202 where an entity R requests a referral from another entity F for a third entity A.
• R could have received an unsolicited profile 64 or virtual filing card 74 from Entity F for Entity A at block 202.
• the profile manager program module 62 for Entity R makes a determination at block 204 whether Entity R already has a virtual filing card 74 for Entity A. If Entity R does not already have a virtual filing card 74 for Entity A, then the profile manager program module 62 installs the virtual filing card 74 for Entity A that has been received from Entity F at block 206.
• Entity R already has a virtual filing card 74 for Entity A
• the profile manager program module 62 determines at block 208 whether the virtual filing card 74 received from Entity F is more current (i.e., has more up-to-date information) than Entity R's existing virtual filing card 74 for Entity A. If the virtual filing card 74 received from Entity F is more current, then the profile manager program module 62 updates Entity R's existing virtual filing card 74 for Entity A with selected, non- subjective information from Entity F's virtual filing card 74 for Entity A at block 212.
• Entity R's virtual filing card 74 for Entity A is more current than the virtual filing card 74 for Entity A received from Entity F
• the profile manager program module 62 updates Entity R's virtual filing card 74 for Entity F to reflect any differences in their subjective assessment of Entity A at block 214. That is, although the virtual filing card 74 for Entity A received from Entity F is "old," Entity R may still benefit by updating its subjective assessment of Entity F based on any differences or commonality of opinion Entity R and Entity F have with respect to Entity A.
• the profile manager program module 62 may store a ratio of average quality of service ratings of A as given by Entity R and Entity F in Entity R's virtual filing card 74 for Entity A at block 216. While the foregoing example is directed to receiving a new virtual filing card 74, the same principles apply when a virtual business card 72 is received.
• the virtual filing cards 74 are declarative specifications that may be used by the profile manager program module 62 on a communication device.
• the virtual filing cards 74 are preferably implemented as passive, declarative specifications to avoid the security concerns that may exist when procedural code is received over a network. Inasmuch as the declarative code contained in a virtual filing card 74 is interpreted by the profile manager program module 62, the likelihood of untoward effects occurring on the communication device may be reduced.
• the outgoing call agent 66 and incoming call agent 68 may also communicate with complementary agents on a communication device associated with another entity to establish a communication session. Operations for establishing a call using the outgoing and incoming call agents 66 and 68 are illustrated in FIGS. 12 and 13. Referring now to FIGS. 12 and 13, operations begin at block 302 where Entity A needs to call Entity B.
• Entity A's outgoing call agent 66a probes Entity A's virtual filing card 74a for Entity B. Using information obtained from virtual filing card 74a, Entity A's outgoing call agent 66a presents a call offer to Entity B's incoming call agent 68b at block 306.
• Entity B's incoming call agent 68b accepts the call offer as determined at block 308, then the profile manager program module 62 updates the contact success field in the virtual filing card 74a based on the current successful call offer at block 312. If, however, Entity B's incoming call agent 68b rejects the call offer as determined at block 308, then Entity A and Entity B may negotiate directly with each other at block 314 (i.e., Entity B may choose to accept the call even though its incoming call agent 68b has rejected the call). Based on the results of the direct negotiation between Entity A and Entity B, the profile manager program modules 62 for the two entities may update their respective virtual filing cards 74a and 74b for each other to reflect the results the negotiation session at block 316.
• Entity B may learn whether Entity A is a good colleague or whether Entity A calls inappropriately. This learning may be incorporated into Entity B's virtual filing card 74b for Entity A and used by the incoming call agent 68b in determining whether to accept future calls from Entity A.
• Entity B's incoming call agent 68b may further negotiate with Entity A's outgoing call agent 66a to arrange a mutually acceptable time, aspect and contact address for the call.
• bandwidth usage and communication latency may be reduced as the appropriate agents on a pair of communication devices may initiate and then negotiate the establishment of a communication session between a pair of entities without direct involvement from the entities.
• each block may represent a module, segment, or portion of code, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s).
• the functions noted in the blocks may occur out of the order noted in FIGS. 8, 11, and 13.
• two blocks shown in succession in FIGS. 8, 11, and 13 may be executed substantially concurrently or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved.

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• 2000
  • 2000-09-28 WO PCT/US2000/026774 patent/WO2001037161A2/en not_active Application Discontinuation
  • 2000-09-28 EP EP00975213A patent/EP1242946A2/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 2000-09-28 AU AU13294/01A patent/AU1329401A/en not_active Abandoned

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