GB2382272A

GB2382272A - Notifying a mobile phone that a message has arrived at a server

Info

Publication number: GB2382272A
Application number: GB0127733A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Wassim Haddad
Original assignee: Hewlett Packard Co
Current assignee: HP Inc
Priority date: 2001-11-20
Filing date: 2001-11-20
Publication date: 2003-05-21
Also published as: GB0127733D0

Abstract

In a messaging system comprising a message server 1 and a mobile device 11, server 1, in response to receiving a message, e.g. an e-mail, sends a notification message to device 11, the notification having information regarding the received message. The information may include sender, subject and/or priority details, and the notification may be sent when these details fulfil predetermined criteria, with the criteria being set using device 11 and priority being assigned by server 1 in accordance with predefined rules. Server 1 and device 11 may communicate wirelessly, e.g. using a GSM and/or GPRS protocol, with the notification comprising an SMS message. Bi-directional communication may be established upon receipt of the notification allowing device 11 to request transmission of the message, with the request being made selectively by the device depending on the message sender, subject and/or priority. Server 1 and device 11 may communicate via a Session Initiation Protocol and/or a Virtual Private Network, and the notification may be sent to a further nominated device (not shown).

Description

MESSAGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM The present invention relates to a message management system for the distribution of messages from a message server to a mobile device, and a method of operating such a message management system.

As the use of mobile devices such as mobile phones and personal organisers increases there is an increased desire on behalf of the users of the mobile devices to be able to access messages, such as e-mails, that have been received at a message server located at a fixed location. At present this may only be achieved by the user establishing a direct connection between the mobile device and the message server and retrieving all of the messages held on the message server. The fact that the user may need to download all of the or each of the available messages to the mobile device prior to being able to look at the messages is disadvantageous because, for example, the bandwidth of the connection between the message server and the mobile device, which is commonly a wireless connection, may be limited such that the time required to download all of the messages is either prohibitively or inconveniently long. The length of time required to download the messages from the message server to the mobile device also normally means that the cost involved in downloading the messages may be high. It can easily be appreciated that a user utilising the mobile device to check messages does not wish to look at all of the messages received at the message server as it is commonly the case that a large number of non-urgent or trivial messages tend to be exchanged. The receipt of such non-urgent or trivial messages over the usually slow and expensive connection between the message server and mobile device further discourages the user from retrieving his other messages.

It would therefore be advantageous to provide a message management system that allowed a mobile device user to retrieve only selected messages stored on a message server.

According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of managing message distribution to a mobile device, the method comprising, in response to receiving a message at a message server sending via a communication system a message notification to said mobile device, said message notification having data pertaining to the message.

Preferably the message notification indicates at least one of the message sender, message subject and message priority.

Additionally or alternatively, only messages received at the message server that conform to predetermined criteria cause a message notification to be sent to the mobile device. The predetermined criteria may be based on at least one of the message sender (for example an "accept"or"deny"list), the message subject or the message priority. The predetermined criteria may be set or amended in response to an initialisation message sent from the mobile device.

Preferably, upon receipt of the message notification, the user is presented with the option to establish a bi-directional communication with the message server such that e-mails or other messages can be received and replies sent.

Preferably communication to and from the mobile device is performed using a wireless communication protocol. Additionally, the message notification and transmission requests may be transmitted in accordance with GSM protocols. Preferably the message notification and transmission requests are comprised of a short message service (SMS) transmission.

Additionally or alternatively, the message is transmitted to the mobile device in accordance with GPRS protocols.

In one possible implementation, the message notification may be sent to a further mobile device nominated by the user to receive the notifications. The further mobile device could be a telephone or a pager or the like. Thus a user could be automatically alerted that he has a message and be aware of its content, subject or sender, before establishing a mail session using another device.

Preferably, the message server and the mobile device may communicate using a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Additionally, the message notification maybe included as a text message with a SIP message.

The message server and mobile device may communicate with each other via a virtual private network. The virtual private network may be implemented in a wired or a wireless form, or a mixture of such technologies.

According to a second aspect of the present invention there is provided a message management system comprising a message server and a mobile device, said message server being arranged to transmit a message notification to said mobile device in response to receiving a message, said message notification including data pertaining to the message.

Preferably, the message server may comprise a message processor arranged to generate the message notification, the message notification identifying at least one of the message sender, the message subject and the message priority.

Additionally, the message processor may be arranged to generate the message notification only if the message conforms to predetermined criteria.

Alternatively or additionally, the processor is further arranged to assign the message priority to the message in accordance with one or more predefined rules.

Preferably the message server sends the message notification via wireless communication.

The wireless communication may utilise a GSM protocol. Preferably the wireless communication utilises a transmitter arranged to transmit the message notification in the form of short message service text messages. A request by the mobile device to receive a message may also be transmitted via a SMS or equivalent message. Preferably, the wireless communication transceiver is further arranged to transmit the message utilising a GPRS protocol.

Alternatively, the message server may comprise a communication module arranged to transmit the message notification and the message, and to receive the message request utilising a network protocol or a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Additionally, the message notification may be included as a text message within a SIP message.

Preferably, the message server is further arranged to send the entire message to the mobile device in response to receiving a transmission request from the mobile device. The transmission request may be generated at the mobile device in response to a message

notification. n Preferably the message server and mobile device are connected to one another via a Local Area Network or a Virtual Private Network.

According to a third aspect of the present invention there is provided a message server arranged to transmit a message notification to a mobile device in response to receiving a message, the message notification including data pertaining to the message.

Preferably the message server comprises a message analyser arranged to identify predetermined elements of the message. The message analyser may be arranged to identify at least one of the message sender, message subject or the message priority.

Additionally, the message server may comprise logic circuitry arranged to enable generation of the message notification only if the message elements identified by the message analyser conform to predetermined criteria. For example, the logic circuitry may inhibit the generation of a message notification unless the message priority is identified as 'urgent'.

Preferably the message server may comprise further logic circuitry arranged to enable the transmission of the entire message in response to receiving a request from the mobile device.

Preferably the message server comprises wireless communication means arranged to transmit said message notification.

An embodiment of the present invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 schematically illustrates an embodiment of the present invention in which communication between the message server and mobile device is accomplished wirelessly; and Figure 2 schematically illustrates an embodiment of the present invention in which communication between the message server and mobile device is accomplished via a wired network.

Figure 1 shows a first embodiment of the present invention. A message server 1 is connected to a network 3, the network 3 being only schematically illustrated in Figure 1 for the sake of clarity. The message server 1 may be for example a mail server for serving email-however, it should be appreciated that the messages may be of a type other than

conventional e-mail. The message server 1 is arranged to be able to receive messages sent via the network 3 or other communication devices able to exchange messages with the network and store them in a message store 5 located within the message server I. The message server 1 also includes a processor 7 that is arranged to examine a received message and to extract certain key elements of information from the message. Such key information may include the message sender, the message subject and the message priority. The message priority, for example"non urgent","urgent","very urgent", may either have been set by the message sender, or may be set by the processor 7 in accordance with certain predetermined rules. For example, the processor may have been arranged to assign a high priority to any messages received from a particular sender or with a particular subject.

The processor 7, having extracted the key pieces of information, or criteria, processes this information to determine if a message notification should be generated to be sent to a mobile device 11. The processor 7 will have been set, or programmed, with certain predetermined criteria such that only messages that conform with the predetermined criteria cause a message notification to be generated. For example, only messages with a high priority may cause a message notification to be generated or only messages received from a certain sender. The criteria may be changed remotely in response to an initialisation signal.

The message notification includes one or more of the key pieces of information extracted from the message by the processor 7, i. e. the message sender, the message subject, or message priority. The processor passes the message notification to a communications device 9. The communication device 9 includes a wireless transceiver arranged to transmit the message notification to a mobile device I I in accordance with known GSM protocols. For example, the message notification may be sent in the form of a SMS (short messaging service) text message. In this embodiment, the mobile device 11 is also equipped with a wireless transceiver (not shown). The mobile device 11 comprises any such mobile device that is suitably equipped to allow the message notification to be conveyed to a user of the mobile device. The mobile device may also be equipped to allow the full message to be retrieved, although this is not essential. One such mobile device is a personal digital assistant. On receipt of the message notification from the message server 1, the message notification is displayed on the mobile device 11. This allows the mobile device user to see that they have received a message at the message server 1 and, more importantly, key

pieces of information about that message. The user is thus able to reach a decision, or select, if it is desired to have the message in its entirety sent from the message server 1 to the mobile device 11.

If the user wishes for the message to be sent in its entirety to the mobile device 11, a transmission request is sent from the mobile device 11. The transmission request may be sent using the same GSM protocol used to send the message notification. The transmission request may simply be the original message notification sent back to the message server 1, or may be some other message generated by the mobile device 11. The only requirement for the transmission request is that it identifies the message stored by the message server 1 that is required to be transmitted in its entirety to the mobile device 11.

On receipt of a transmission request at the communications module 9, the processor 7 determines the required message and causes the message to be retrieved from the message store 5 by the communication module 9. The communication module 9 is further arranged to be able to transmit the selected message in its entirety to the mobile device 11 using a different transmission protocol from that used for the message notification and transmission request, such as GPRS. The entire message is sent to the mobile device 11 using the second transmission protocol.

An advantage of this message management system is that the message notification and transmission requests are transmitted using a GSM protocol that has a relatively small bandwidth and low transmission rate that, whilst relatively quick and cheap for small messages, would be prohibitively expensive and/or slow for the entire message. This

narrow bandwidth transmission is indicated on Figure 1 by the double headed arrow 13. In contrast, the transmission protocol used to transmit the entire message from the message server 1 to the mobile device 11 is chosen to have a much larger bandwidth and/or faster data transfer capability. As stated above, one such example is the GPRS protocol to be used with 3G wireless communication devices. This broad bandwidth and faster connection is indicated by the single headed arrow 15 on Figure 1. Hence the user of the mobile device 11 is able to select only those messages that it is desired to see and only those messages are sent over the relatively costly high speed connection 15.

As an alternative to the user manually sending a transmission request in response to a message notification, the mobile device I I may be arranged to automatically respond to message notifications in accordance with predetermined criteria. For example, the mobile device I 1 may be arranged to issue transmission requests only in response to message notifications identifying in a message from a particular sender, having a particular message subject, or having a particular priority.

A further embodiment of the present invention is schematically illustrated in Figure 2. The same reference numerals have been used to refer to the same elements as shown in Figure 1. As in Figure 1, the message server I is connected to a wired network 3. The message server 1 comprises a message store 5 and a processor 7. The message server 1 also includes a communications module 21, although this is not identical to the communication device 9 shown in Figure 1. The message server 1 is connected to a mobile device 11 via a further network 23. The network may be, for example, a local area network or a Virtual Private Network (VPN). A VPN is a private network built atop a public network. Hosts within the private network use encryption to communicate with other hosts, thus excluding hosts from outside the private network, even if they are also on the public network. A VPN therefore offers advantages in terms of secure transmissions.

The operation of the message management system shown in Figure 2 is the same as that described in relation to Figure 1 with the exception that communication between the message server 1 and the mobile device I I is accomplished via the network 23, rather than using wireless connections as described with relation to Figure 1. Transmissions between

the message server 1 and the mobile device 11 may be accomplished using the network protocol. In a preferred embodiment, the message notification may be transmitted to the mobile device 11 using a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). SIP is a signalling protocol for setting up, controlling and terminating sessions across a network. When SIP is used across the network each user has an address that is related to the network. When the user moves across to another network, his SIP address will change, however if the user has a"home" network where the user is primarily located it will remain possible to use the home SIP address when contacting the user. Hence the message server I is always able to use the home SIP address to reach the mobile device 11. A feature of SIP is that it allows a short

text message to be included in the SIP message. This allows the message notification to be included in the SIP message, as opposed to a separate, discreet message.

In the embodiment shown in Figure 2, use of SIP allows the message notification to be sent to the mobile device 11 without increasing the normal communication traffic on the network. It will be appreciated that even if the same transmission protocol is used for the transmission of the message notification and transmission request as for the transmission of the entire message, the embodiment shown in Figure 2 does have the advantage that only selected messages are transmitted to the mobile device. This is advantageous because the time taken to download only selected messages is still less than that required to download all messages if no selection is applied, and it can be envisaged that the mobile device may be limited in storage capability for received messages and thus only the selected messages utilise this limited storage.

Claims

CLAIMS I. A method of managing message distribution to a mobile device, the method comprising : in response to receiving a message at a message server, sending via a communication system a message notification to said mobile device, said message notification having data pertaining to the message.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein said message notification indicates at least one of the message sender, message subject and message priority.
3. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein only messages received at said message server that conform to predetermined criteria cause a message notification to be sent to said mobile device.
4. The method according to claim 3, wherein said predetermined criteria is based on at least one of message sender, message subject and message priority.
5. The method according to claims 3 or 4, wherein said predetermined criteria are set in response to an initialisation message sent from said mobile device.
6. The method according to any preceding claim, wherein upon receipt of said message notification, bi-directional communication between said message server and said mobile device is selectively established, whereby said message is sent to said mobile device.
7. The method according to any preceding claim, wherein communication to and from said mobile device is performed using a wireless communication protocol.
8. The method according to claim 7, wherein said message notification is transmitted in accordance with at least one GSM protocol.
9. The method according to claim 8, wherein said message notification comprises a short message service transmission.

<Desc/Clms Page number 10>
10. The method according to any one of claims 7 to 9, wherein said message is transmitted to said mobile device in accordance with at least one GPRS protocol.
11. The method according to any preceding claim, wherein said message notification is sent to a further mobile device nominated to receive message notifications.
12. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein said message server and said mobile device communicate using a Session Initiation Protocol.
13. A method according to claim 12, wherein said message notification is included as a text message within a Session Initiation Protocol message.
14. A method according any preceding claim, wherein said message server and said mobile device communicate via a Virtual Private Network.
15. A method according to any preceding claim, wherein in response to said message notification, the mobile device sends a transmission request for said message to said message server.
16. A method as claimed in claim 15 where dependent on claim 7, wherein the transmission request is transmitted in accordance with at least one GSM protocol.
17. A method as claimed in claim 16, wherein the transmission request comprise a short message service transmission.
18. A message management system comprising a message server and a mobile device, said message server being arranged to transmit a message notification to said mobile device in response to receiving a message, said message notification including data pertaining to the message.
19. A message management system according to claim 18, wherein said message server comprises a message processor arranged to generate said message notification, said message notification identifying at least one of the message sender, the message subject and the message priority.

<Desc/Clms Page number 11>
20. A message management system according to claim 18 or claiml9, wherein said I message processor is arranged to generate said message notification only if said message conforms to predetermined criteria.
21. A message management system according to any of claims 18 to 20, wherein said processor is further arranged to assign said message priority to said message in accordance with one or more redefined rules.
22. A message management system according any one of claims 18 to 21, wherein said message server comprises a wireless communication transceiver.
23. A message management system according to claim 22, wherein said wireless communication transceiver utilises at least one GSM protocol.
24. A message management system according to claim 23, wherein said wireless communication transceiver is arranged to transmit said message notification in the form of a short message service text message.
25. A message management system according to any of claims 22 to 24, wherein said wireless communication transceiver is further arranged to transmit said message utilising a GPRS protocol.
26. A message management system according to any one of claims 18 to 22, wherein said message server comprises a communications module arranged to transmit said message notification and said message and receive said message request utilising a Session Initiation Protocol.
27. A message management system according to claim 26, wherein said message notification is included as a text message within a Session Initiation Protocol message.
28. A message management system according to any of claims 18 to 27, wherein said message server and said mobile device communicate via a Virtual Private Network.
29. A message management system according to any one of claims 18 to 28, wherein the message server is further arranged to send said message to the mobile device in response to receiving a transmission request from said mobile device.

<Desc/Clms Page number 12>
30. A message management system according to claim 29 where dependent on claim 22, wherein said wireless communication transceiver is arranged to transmit said transmission request in the form of a short message service text message.
31. A message management system according to any one of claims 18 to 30, wherein said mobile device is arranged to selectively transmit said transmission request to said message server as a function of one or more of the message sender, message subject and message priority.
32. A message server arranged to transmit a message notification to a mobile device in response to receiving a message, the message notification including data pertaining to the message.
33. A message server according to claim 32, wherein said message server comprises a message analyser arranged to identify predetermined elements of said message.
34. A message server according to claim 33, wherein said message server is further arranged to enable generation of said message notification only if said identified predetermined elements conform to one or more criteria.
35. A message server according to claim 34, comprising further logic circuitry arranged to enable transmission of said message to said mobile device in response to receiving a transmission request from said mobile device.