JP2006238112A - Notification apparatus, notification condition designating apparatus and state notification method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a notification apparatus, a notified apparatus and a state notification method which designates a notification condition by a state of a plurality of equipment or a user of the equipment, and reduces an unnecessary notification information. <P>SOLUTION: The user 130 sets "a mobile telephone is available or a PC102 is now being used by the user and a fixed telephone is available" to the notification condition and an URI of a PC104 to a notified URI from a key input. The mobile telephone, the PC102, and the fixed telephone transmit a PUBLISH to the notification apparatus every time the state changes. When the notification apparatus receives the PUBLISH, the state of the mobile telephone, the PC102, and the fixed telephone is confirmed whether to meet the notification condition, the notification information is not transmitted when it does not meet the notification condition, and the notification information is transmitted only when it meets the notification condition. The PC104 as the notified apparatus displays the information on a screen when the notification information is received, and the state of the user 120 is notified to the user 130. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a notification device, a notification condition designation device, and a state notification method for notifying a device or a user status of the device.

  In recent years, a presence service that can know a connection state (online / offline) of a communication partner has been used in a simple text mail exchange service (IM: Instant Message) or the like. In addition, as a presence service in a company, a service for notifying the presence / absence of a communication partner via a network is becoming widespread.

  As one method for providing such a service, SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) events indicated in RFC 3261 (issue: 20022.6) and RFC 3265 (issue: 20022.6) of IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) There is a notification function. When implementing a presence service in a company using the SIP event notification function, for example, a presence server for managing the status of an employee is installed. Send a state change notification.

  FIG. 22 is a diagram showing a network configuration in a presence service using a SIP event notification function, which is an example of a conventional notification device, notification condition designating device and notified device. Computers (also referred to as PCs) 701 to 704 are connected to the in-house LAN 710 and have a presence state (present / absent) of a user who uses the PC. The presence server 700, which is a notification device, manages the states of the PCs 701 to 704. When there is a request for status notification and the status changes, the status is directed toward the device that is requesting the status notification, that is, the device to be notified. Notify changes.

  For example, if the PC 701 is “attended” and is also a notification condition designation device, and the PC 704 as a notified device requests the PC 704 to notify the PC 704 of the status, the presence server 700 indicates that the PC 701 is “present”. “PC seat” is notified to the PC 704. Next, when the PC 701 changes from “present” to “absent”, the state “absent” is registered in the presence server 700. The presence server updates the status of the PC 701 from “present” to “absent”, and notifies the PC 704 that has requested the status notification of the PC 701 of the status change.

  A SIP message used for such status notification will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 23 is a diagram illustrating a message flow of a presence service using SIP in a conventional notification device and a notified device. The PC 701 transmits an issuance message (hereinafter also referred to as “PUBLISH”) describing the state of the own device to the presence server 700 and registers the current state in the presence server 700. When the presence server 700 receives the PUBLISH and registers the state of the PC 701, the presence server 700 returns a “200 OK response” defined by SIP.

  In order to request the PC 701 status notification, the PC 704, which is also a notification condition specifying device and a notified device, requests a status notification describing the URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) of the PC 701 and the type of status requesting the notification (here, presence). A message (hereinafter also referred to as SUBSCRIBE) is transmitted to the presence server 700. When the presence server 700 receives SUBSCRIBE and accepts the notification request, it returns a “200 OK response”. Thereafter, the presence server 700 transmits a notification message (hereinafter also referred to as NOTIFY) describing the state of the PC 701 to the PC 704.

  When the PC 704 receives NOTIFY and acquires the state of the PC 701, it returns a “200 OK response” to the presence server 700. Thereafter, the PC 701 transmits PUBLISH to the presence server 700 every time the state of the own apparatus changes. Upon receiving the PUBLISH from the PC 701, the presence server 700 transmits NOTIFY describing the state of the PC 701 to the PC 704.

  By using the SIP event notification function as described above, a status notification service represented by a presence service can be realized. Currently, the status that can be notified is limited to the whereabouts and the behavioral status of the employee, but in the future, not only that but services that notify the status of all devices connected to the network are expected to appear. However, as the number of notification states and devices increases, an increase in processing load on the server managing the state becomes a problem, and it is necessary to reduce the load.

  As this load reduction method, for example, there is an event filter proposed in the IETF SIMPLE (SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions) working group. The event filter will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 24 is a diagram illustrating a message flow of an event filter in a conventional notification device and notification condition designating device.

  According to the event filter, it is possible to transmit NOTIFY only when a certain device is in a designated state in the notification device. When transmitting the SUBSCRIBE, the PC 704 describes a condition for generating NOTIFY in the body part of the SUBSCRIBE. In this example, a condition “notify only when the PC 701 is absent” is described. In addition, although XML (Extensible Markup Language) is used for description of actual conditions, detailed description is abbreviate | omitted here. When the presence server 700 receives SUBSCRIBE, it sends NOTIFY describing the state of the PC 701 to the PC 704. The NOTIFY transmitted first after receiving SUBSCRIBE is transmitted even when the condition described in SUBSCRIBE is not satisfied.

  After that, the presence server 700 which is a conventional notification device does not transmit NOTIFY when receiving the PUBLISH that registers the state of “present”, but only when the PUBLISH that registers the state of “absent” is received. NOTIFY is transmitted to PC 704 which is a conventional notified device.

In this way, the event filter transmits NOTIFY only when the conditions specified by the PC 704 are satisfied, so unnecessary NOTIFY traffic is reduced, network resources can be used effectively, and the NOTIFY transmission processing load of the presence server 700 can be reduced ( For example, refer nonpatent literature 1).
`` Functional Description of Event Notification Filtering '', IETF draft-ietf-simple-event-filter-funct-04, Publisher: H.Khartabil, E.Leppanen, M.Lonnfors, J.Costa-Requena, 14 January 2005 Effective, chapters 3-5 (page 5-14)

  However, in the conventional notification device and notification condition designating device, the condition that can be designated is only the state of a single device, and it is not disclosed that the states of a plurality of devices are designated. For this reason, for example, it is not possible to specify such as notification only when “user A or user B is present and user C is not present”, and an unnecessary NOTIFY is transmitted. there were.

  The present invention has been made in order to solve the conventional problems, and can provide notification devices that can specify notification conditions according to the states of a plurality of devices or users of devices, and can reduce unnecessary notification information, and notified devices It is another object of the present invention to provide a status notification method.

  The notification device according to the present invention includes a notification condition storage unit that stores a notification condition that is a condition for notification to a notified device, and status information that acquires status information provided by an individual device or a status information provider that is a user of the device. A notification device including an acquisition unit and a transmission unit configured to transmit notification information to a notification target device when a plurality of state information acquired by the state information acquisition unit satisfies a notification condition. Each state condition that is indicated by a logical condition consisting of a condition and that constitutes a plurality of state conditions has a configuration that includes a set of a state item and a state value of a state information issuer corresponding to each state condition .

  With this configuration, notification conditions can be specified by logical conditions depending on the states of a plurality of devices or user of devices, and unnecessary notification information can be reduced.

  In addition, the notification device of the present invention has a configuration in which the transmission unit does not transmit the notification information to the notified device when the logical condition including the plurality of state information acquired by the state information acquisition unit does not satisfy the notification condition. Yes. With this configuration, unnecessary transmission of notification information can be suppressed, communication resources can be used effectively, and the transmission processing load on the transmission means can be reduced.

  In addition, the notification device of the present invention has a configuration in which at least one of the status information issuers is a notification device. With this configuration, the state of the notification device itself can be specified as a notification condition, and more complicated notification conditions can be specified.

  The notification device of the present invention further includes notification condition receiving means for receiving notification conditions, and has a configuration for storing the notification conditions received by the notification condition receiving means in the notification condition storage means. With this configuration, it becomes possible for another device to specify a notification condition. For example, the notified device that receives the notification information specifies the notification condition, so that the notified device can receive the notification at a desired timing. Further, since notification at a timing not required by the notified device is eliminated, network resources can be used effectively, and the transmission / reception processing load of the notification packet is reduced.

  The notification device of the present invention has a configuration in which the logical condition includes at least one of AND (and), OR (or), and NOT (negative). It is possible to specify conditions that connect a plurality of state conditions with simple AND / OR / NOT. For example, it is possible to specify a notification condition such as “(User A is in the conference room OR User B is in the conference room) AND User C is not in the conference room”, and notification can be made at a more appropriate timing. .

  Moreover, the notification device of the present invention has a configuration in which the transmission means uses SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) for transmission of the notification information. Even when the SIP event notification function is used, a notification condition can be specified, communication resources can be used effectively, and the transmission processing load of notification information is reduced.

  Furthermore, the notification condition designating device of the present invention provides a notification condition acquisition unit that acquires a notification condition, which is a condition for the notification device to transmit notification information to the notified device, and the notification condition acquired by the notification condition acquisition unit. A notification condition specifying device including a notification condition transmitting means, wherein the notification condition is indicated by a logical condition composed of a plurality of state conditions, and each state condition constituting the plurality of state conditions is an individual state It includes a set of status items and status values of status information issuers corresponding to the conditions, and the status information issuer has a configuration that is an individual device or a user of the device.

  With this configuration, notification conditions can be arbitrarily designated for the notification device.

  The present invention relates to a notification condition storage unit that stores a notification condition that is a condition to be notified to a notified device, and a state information acquisition unit that acquires state information provided by an individual device or a state information provider that is a user of the device. A plurality of state information acquired by the state information acquisition unit includes a transmission unit that transmits notification information to the notified device when the notification condition is satisfied, and the notification condition is indicated by a logical condition including a plurality of state conditions, Each state condition that constitutes a plurality of state conditions includes a set of state items and state values of the state information issuer corresponding to each state condition. Can be specified, and a notification device having an effect that unnecessary notification information can be reduced can be provided.

  Hereinafter, a notification device and a notification condition designating device according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

(Embodiment 1)
FIG. 1 is a network configuration diagram including a notification device according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention.

  In FIG. 1, a notification device (hereinafter also referred to as a presence server) 100 is connected to a mobile phone 101, a PC 102, a fixed phone 103, and a PC 104 via a network 110. The mobile phone 101, the PC 102, and the fixed phone 103 are devices owned by the user 120, and perform status registration with the presence server 100 each time the status of each device changes. The PC 104 is a device owned by the user 130 and is a notified device that receives a status notification from the presence server 100.

  The presence server 100 holds and manages the status of each device, and notifies the PC 104 of the status. In the first embodiment, a notification condition that “the mobile phone 101 can make a call or the PC 102 is currently used by a user and a fixed phone can make a call” is set by key input from the key input unit of the presence server 100, An example in which the presence server 100 sends a status notification to the PC 104 that is a notified device only when the notification condition is satisfied. In this embodiment, the notification condition is set by a key input from the key input unit. However, the present invention is not limited to this, but a pointing device such as a touch panel or a mouse, voice recognition input means, etc. But it is possible.

  First, the message flow showing the operation of the notification device according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. Although the first embodiment shows an example of communication using SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), the communication protocol may be HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) or other protocols. SIP is shown in RFC 3261 (issue: 20022.6) and RFC 3265 (issue: 20022.6) of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

  In FIG. 2, for the sake of simplification, the description of the “200 OK” response to the PUBLISH message, the SUBSCRIBE message, and the NOTIFY message is omitted, but actually, the “200 OK” response is returned to each message.

  The mobile phone 101, the PC 102, and the fixed phone 103 transmit PUBLISH to the presence server 100 and register the states of each in advance. The user 130 uses the key input unit 307, which will be described later, to the presence server 100 to set the notification condition “mobile phone 101 is available for communication, or PC 102 is currently used by the user and landline is available for communication”, and notification is made. “Sip: 104@example.com” which is the URI of the PC 104 is set as the destination URI.

  The mobile phone 101, the PC 102, and the fixed phone 103 transmit PUBLISH to the presence server 100 each time the status of each changes. When the presence server 100 receives the PUBLISH, the presence server 100 checks whether the statuses of the mobile phone 101, the PC 102, and the fixed phone 103 satisfy the set notification conditions. If the notification conditions are not satisfied, the presence server 100 does not transmit NOTIFY and satisfies the notification conditions. Only when it sends NOTIFY to the PC 104.

  Here, returning to FIG. 1, the first embodiment will be described in detail.

  The mobile phone 101 has a state item “state” representing a basic state, and the state has three state values “standby / off / busy” representing “standby / power off / busy”.

  The PC 102 is a PC installed in the room of the user 120 and has a status item “present” indicating whether the user 120 is currently using the PC 102, and presence is “open / closed” indicating “present / absent”. It has two state values. The presence status can be detected by various methods such as “absent” when the screen saver of the PC 102 is activated, and “absent” otherwise.

  The fixed telephone 103 is also installed in the room, and has a state item “state” like the mobile phone 101, and has a state value “standby / off / busy”.

  In addition to the above, the state item and the state value may have other state items and state values such as a radio wave intensity state and a network connection state.

  When the states of the mobile phone 101, the PC 102, and the fixed phone 103 change, PUBLISH is transmitted to the presence server to register the states. Note that the address of the presence server may be set in advance for each device, or may be acquired using other methods. As a state registration method, for example, when registering a state in which the presence of the PC 102 is present, a text “sip: 102@example.com: presence = open” ”may be described in the body part of PUBLISH. The text representing the state may be in XML or other formats, and may be described in the header portion instead of the body portion. For status registration, other messages or protocols other than SIP may be used without using PUBLISH.

  When receiving the NOTIFY from the presence server 100, the PC 104 as the notified device displays the information on the screen and notifies the user 130 of the state of the user 120. The presence server 100 holds the notification condition input from the user 130, and transmits NOTIFY to the PC 104 only when the states of the mobile phone 101, the PC 102, and the fixed phone 103 satisfy the notification condition. Details of the configuration and operation of the presence server 100 will be described later.

  The network 110 is assumed to be an in-house LAN, but other networks such as a home network and the Internet may be used in addition to the in-house LAN. Further, the network is not limited to a network as long as individual devices can communicate with each other via some kind of communication medium.

  Next, the device configuration and operation of the presence server 100 will be described in detail. For simplification, the description of the operation of the “200 OK” response to each message is omitted, but it is assumed that there is a “200 OK” response transmission / reception operation for all messages.

  The notification condition setting operation of presence server 100, which is a notification device in the present embodiment, will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 3 is a device configuration diagram of the notification device (presence server 100) in the present embodiment, and FIG. 4 is a notification condition setting flowchart of the presence server 100 in the present embodiment.

  First, the control unit 301 sends a command for displaying a screen for inputting a notification condition and a notification destination URI to the screen output unit 306 (S101), and waits for an input from the user 130 (S102). When a notification condition and a notification destination URI are input from the user 130 to the key input unit 307, the information is sent to the control unit 301 (S103). Here, it is assumed that the condition that “the mobile phone 101 can make a call or the PC 102 is currently used by a user and the fixed phone 103 can make a call” is input as a notification condition, and the URI of the PC 104 is input as a notification destination URI. The notification condition and the notification destination URI can be input by various methods such as selecting an appropriate condition or URI from a plurality of preset notification conditions or notification destination URIs.

  The control unit 301 converts the input condition into a notification condition format (S104). Here, the notification condition “sip: 101@example.com: state =“ standby ”OR (sip: 102@example.com: present =“ open ”AND sip: 103@example.com: state =“ standby ”)” Convert to The notification condition format may be other formats such as XML.

  The control unit 301 stores the notification condition and the notification destination URI in the notification condition holding unit 303 (S105). Here, as a notification condition, “sip: 101@example.com: state =“ standby ”OR (sip: 102@example.com: presence =“ open ”AND sip: 103@example.com: state =“ standby ”)” And “sip: 104@example.com”, which is the URI of the PC 104, is stored as the notification destination URI. The notification condition holding unit 303 can hold a plurality of notification conditions and a notification destination URI. Details of the data structure of the notification condition holding unit 303 will be described later with reference to FIG.

  Next, the PUBLISH reception operation of the presence server 100 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 5 is a PUBLISH reception flowchart of the notification device (presence server 100) according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention.

  First, the communication unit 305 receives PUBLISH (S201), and sends the received PUBLISH to the control unit 301 (S202). The control unit 301 stores the state described in PUBLISH in the state management database 302 (S203). For example, when the state “sip: 103@example.com: state = busy” is described in PUBLISH, sip: 103 @ example. The state value of the state item “state” possessed by the URI “com” is changed to “busy”. Details of the data structure of the state management database will be described later with reference to FIG.

  The control unit 301 acquires the first notification condition and the notification destination URI stored in the notification condition holding unit 303 (S204). If the status item updated by PUBLISH is not included in the notification condition, the process proceeds to step S212 described later (S205). This means that NOTIFY is not generated when the updated status item is not related to the notification condition. For example, the acquired notification condition is “sip: 101@example.com: state =“ standby ”OR (sip: 102@example.com: presence =“ open ”AND sip: 103@example.com: state =“ standby ”) ”And the state described in PUBLISH is“ sip: 101@example.com: state = “busy” ”, the updated state item is included in the notification condition, so the process does not proceed to step S212. .

  When the updated state item is included in the notification condition, the state described in the notification condition is acquired from the state management database 302 (S206). If the acquired state does not satisfy the notification condition, the process proceeds to step S212 to be described later (S207). This means that NOTIFY is not generated when the current state does not satisfy the notification condition.

  For example, the acquired state is “sip: 101@example.com: state =“ off ”sip: 102@example.com: presence =“ closed ”sip: 103@example.com: state =“ busy ””, notification When the condition is “sip: 101@example.com: state =“ standby ”OR (sip: 102@example.com: present =“ open ”AND sip: 103@example.com: state =“ standby ”)” Does not satisfy the notification condition, the process proceeds to step S212.

  On the other hand, if the acquired state satisfies the notification condition, the acquired state and the notification destination URI are sent to the message generation unit 304 (S208), and the message generation unit 304 describes the notification destination URI in the Request-URI, and the state is the body. NOTIFY described in the section is generated (S209). The message generation unit 304 sends the generated NOTIFY to the communication unit 305 (S210), and the communication unit 305 transmits NOTIFY (S211).

  After that, the control unit 301 confirms whether all the notification conditions stored in the notification condition holding unit 303 have been processed, and ends when all the notification conditions stored are processed (S212). If there is a notification condition that has not yet been processed, the control unit 301 acquires the next notification condition and notification destination URI from the notification condition holding unit 303 (S213), and returns to step S205 to continue the process.

  Next, the NOTIFY reception operation of the PC 104 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 6 is a device configuration diagram of the PC 104 that is a notified device that receives a notification from the notification device according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention, and FIG. 7 is a NOTIFY reception flowchart of the PC 104.

  The communication unit 203 receives NOTIFY (S301), and sends the received NOTIFY to the control unit 201 (S302). The control unit 201 sends a command to display the state described in NOTIFY on the screen output unit 202, and displays the state on the screen (S303). For example, the state described in NOTIFY is “sip: 101@example.com: state =“ off ”sip: 102@example.com: present =“ closed ”sip: 103@example.com: state =“ standby ”” If there is, a text message “mobile phone: power OFF, user: absent, office phone: call available” is displayed on the screen. The screen display form may be an icon display or other forms, or may be a notification method using sound or other methods without being displayed on the screen.

  Next, details of the contents of the NOTIFY message in the first embodiment will be described. Since PUBLISH is the same as a message used in normal SIP, description thereof is omitted. The message described in the figure is omitted except for the parts necessary for the explanation, but the actual message has other headers.

  FIG. 8 is a data structure diagram of NOTIFY transmitted from the notification device (presence server 100) to the notified device (PC 104) according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention.

  In the NOTIFY Request-URI, the URI of the PC 104 held in the notification destination URI of the notification condition holding unit is described. In the Event header, “Multi-Filter” representing an event related to a notification condition of a plurality of states is described. The state acquired from the state management database 302 is described in the body part. The state may be described in the header portion using an extension header.

  Next, the data structures of the state management database 302 and the notification condition holding unit 303 will be described.

  First, details of the state management database 302 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 9 is a data structure diagram of the state management database 302 of the notification device according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. The state management database 302 is a database that holds URIs and states of subordinate devices, and holds a set of device URIs and one or more state items and state values for each device.

  In the example described in FIG. 9, a device having a URI “sip: 101@example.com” has a state value “off” indicating the power OFF state for the state item “state”, and the radio wave intensity. It is shown that the state item “radio_intensity” indicating “” has a state value “3” indicating the radio wave intensity level 3. Various combinations such as “network” indicating a connection state to the network are conceivable as a set of state items and state values to be held.

  Next, details of the notification condition holding unit 303 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 10 is a data structure diagram of the notification condition holding unit 303 of the notification device according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. The notification condition holding unit 303 holds a notification condition set by the user and a notification destination URI. A plurality of notification conditions and notification destination URIs can be stored.

  In the example described in FIG. 10, “sip: 101@example.com: state =“ standby ”OR (sip: 102@example.com: present =“ open ”AND sip: 103@example.com: state =” When the notification condition “standby”) ”is satisfied, it indicates that notification is sent to“ sip: 104@example.com ”.

  As described above, in the first embodiment, the user 130 sets a condition in which the states of a plurality of devices are connected to the presence server 100 as logical conditions as the notification condition. In this example, NOTIFY is transmitted. As a result, unnecessary NOTIFY is not transmitted, network resources can be used effectively, and the NOTIFY transmission / reception load between the presence server 100 and the PC 104 is reduced.

(Embodiment 2)
The network configuration including the notification device and the notification condition designation device according to the second embodiment of the present invention is the notification device in which the PC 104 that is the notified device also serves as the notification condition designation device of the present embodiment. The difference is that a notification request is issued to the presence server 100. In the second embodiment of the present invention, the state notification request specifying the notification condition that the PC 104 makes a call to the presence server 100 “the mobile phone 101 can make a call, or the PC 102 is currently used by a user and the landline can make a call”. SUBSCRIBE is sent, and the presence server 100 performs the status notification only when the notification condition described in SUBSCRIBE is satisfied.

  First, a message flow in the notification device and the notification condition designation device according to the second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 11, the description of the “200 OK” response is omitted as in FIG.

  The mobile phone 101, the PC 102, and the fixed phone 103 transmit PUBLISH to the presence server 100 and register the states of each in advance. The PC 104 transmits SUBSCRIBE describing the notification condition to the presence server 100. At this time, the notification condition is “sip: 101@example.com: state =“ standby ”OR (representing a condition that the mobile phone 101 can make a call, or the PC 102 is currently used by a user and a fixed phone can make a call). sip: 102@example.com: presence = “open” AND sip: 103@example.com: state = “standby”) ”is described in the SIP body part of SUBSCRIBE. When receiving the SUBSCRIBE, the presence server 100 transmits NOTIFY describing the current state of the mobile phone 101, the PC 102, and the fixed phone 103 to the PC 104.

  Thereafter, the mobile phone 101, the PC 102, and the fixed phone 103 each send PUBLISH to the presence server 100 every time the status of each changes. When the presence server 100 receives the PUBLISH, the presence server 100 checks whether the state of the mobile phone 101, the PC 102, and the fixed telephone 103 satisfies the notification condition specified by SUBSCRIBE. Only when the condition is satisfied, NOTIFY is transmitted to the PC 104.

  Next, the device configurations and operations of the PC 104 and the presence server 100 will be described in detail. As in the first embodiment, for the sake of simplification, description of the “200 OK” response operation for each message is omitted. Since the NOTIFY reception operation of the PC 104 and the PUBLISH reception operation of the presence server 100 are the same as those in the first embodiment, the description thereof is omitted. The SUBSCRIBE transmission operation of the PC 104 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 12 is a device configuration diagram of the PC 104 that is a notification condition designating device and a notified device according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention, and FIG. 13 is a SUBSCRIBE transmission flowchart of the PC 104.

  In FIG. 13, the control unit 401 sends a command to display a screen for inputting notification conditions to the screen output unit 402 (S401), and waits for an input from the user 130 (S402). When a notification condition is input from the user 130, the information is sent from the key input unit 403 to the control unit 401 (S403). Here, it is assumed that a condition that “the mobile phone 101 can make a call, or the PC 102 is currently used by a user and the fixed phone 103 can make a call” is input as a notification condition.

  The control unit 401 converts the input condition into a notification condition format (S404). Here, the notification condition “sip: 101@example.com: state =“ standby ”OR (sip: 102@example.com: present =“ open ”AND sip: 103@example.com: state =“ standby ”)” Convert to

  The control unit 401 sends the converted notification condition to the message generation unit 404 (S405), and the message generation unit 404 generates SUBSCRIBE describing the notification condition (S406). The message generation unit 404 sends the generated SUBSCRIBE to the communication unit 405 (S407), and the communication unit 405 transmits the received SUBSCRIBE to the presence server 100 (S408). Here, the address of the presence server may be preset in the PC 104 or may be input from the input screen by the user. Details regarding the contents of the SUBSCRIBE message will be described later with reference to FIG.

  Next, the SUBSCRIBE reception operation of the presence server 100, which is the notification device according to the present embodiment, will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 14 is a device configuration diagram of the notification device (presence server 100) according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention, and FIG. 15 is a SUBSCRIBE reception flowchart of the presence server 100.

  In FIG. 15, the communication unit 505 receives the SUBSCRIBE transmitted from the notification condition designating device (S501), and sends the received SUBSCRIBE to the control unit 501 (S502). The control unit 501 stores the notification condition and the notification destination URI described in SUBSCRIBE in the notification condition holding unit 503 (S503). Here, as a notification condition, “sip: 101@example.com: state =“ standby ”OR (sip: 102@example.com: presence =“ open ”AND sip: 103@example.com: state =“ standby ”)” Since this is described, save it. As the notification destination URI, the URI described in the Contact header of SUBSCRIBE is stored. The details of the data structure of the notification condition holding unit 503 are the same as those of the notification condition holding unit 303 of the first embodiment, and will not be described.

  Thereafter, the control unit 501 acquires the state of the device described in the notification condition from the state management database 502 (S504). Here, sip: 101 @ example. com state and sip: 102@example.com. com presence and sip: 103@example.com. Each state of com state is acquired. The control unit 501 sends the acquired state to the message generation unit 504 (S505), and the message generation unit 504 generates NOTIFY describing the received state (S506). The message generation unit 504 sends the generated NOTIFY to the communication unit 505 (S507), and the communication unit 505 transmits NOTIFY to the PC 104 (S508).

  Next, details of the contents of the SUBSCRIBE message in Embodiment 2 of the present invention will be described. Since PUBLISH is the same as the message used in normal SIP as in the first embodiment, the description thereof is omitted. Further, details regarding the contents of the NOTIFY message are the same as those in the first embodiment, and are therefore omitted.

  Details of the contents of SUBSCRIBE will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 16 is a SUBSCRIBE data format diagram showing notification conditions transmitted from the notification condition designating device (PC 104) to the notification device (presence server 100) in the second embodiment of the present invention. As in FIG. 8, the messages described in the figure are omitted except for the parts necessary for the explanation.

  The SUBSCRIBE Request-URI may describe any of the URIs of the mobile phone 101, the PC 102, and the fixed phone 103, or an arbitrary address (such as anonymous @ anywhere) preset in the PC 104 may be described Good. In the Event header, “Multi-Filter” indicating a filter specifying the states of a plurality of devices is described. The notification condition is described in the body part. The notification condition may be described in the header portion using an extension header.

  As described above, in the second embodiment, the SUBSCRIBE in which the PC 104 operating as the notification condition designating device describes, as the notification condition, the condition obtained by connecting the states of a plurality of devices to the presence server 100 that is the notification device. In the example, the presence server 100 transmits NOTIFY only when the notification condition is satisfied. As a result, the notification condition can be specified by the PC 104 as the notification condition specifying device, NOTIFY is transmitted at a more appropriate timing, unnecessary NOTIFY is not transmitted, and network resources can be used effectively. The NOTIFY transmission / reception load between the presence server 100 and the PC 104 is reduced.

  In the present embodiment, the case where the notified device has the function of the notification condition designating device of the present invention has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this and can be installed individually. Yes. Further, the present invention, for example, as shown in FIG. 17, the notification condition is “above” or “below” such that the radio wave intensity of the mobile phone 101 is 1 or more and the PC 102 is currently used by the user. Even an inequality sign such as “can be implemented.

  FIG. 17 is a data format diagram of a notification condition transmitted from the notification condition designating device to the notification device according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention. Since the header part of SUBSCRIBE is the same as in the previous case of the present embodiment, description thereof is omitted. Notification conditions are specified in the body part of SUBSCRIBE. Here, “sip: 101@example.com: radio_intensity> =“ 1 ”AND sip: 102 @ example indicating a notification condition that“ the mobile phone 101 has a radio wave intensity of 1 or more and the PC 102 is currently being used by a user ”. .Com: presence = “open” ”is described.

  When the presence server 100 receives SUBSCRIBE, it performs the same operation as in the previous example of this embodiment, and transmits NOTIFY only when the notification condition described in SUBSCRIBE is satisfied.

  As described above, the PC 104 sends a status notification request specifying the notification condition “the mobile phone 101 has a radio wave intensity of 1 or more and the PC 102 is currently being used by the user” to the presence server 100, and the presence server 100. Shows an example in which status notification is performed only when the notification condition described in SUBSCRIBE is satisfied. As described above, an inequality sign can be used as a relation condition between a state item and a state value in the notification condition.

(Embodiment 3)
FIG. 18 is a network configuration diagram including a notification device and a notification condition specifying device according to Embodiment 3 of the present invention. A PC 601 operating as a notification device, a mobile phone 602, a notification condition specifying device, and a PC 603 operating as a notified device are connected to a network 610. The PC 601 and the mobile phone 602 are devices owned by the user 620. The PC 603 is a device owned by the user 630. The PC 603 desires notification of the status of the PC 601 and the mobile phone 602 and sends a status notification request to either the PC 601 or the mobile phone 602. Here, a status notification request specifying a notification condition “PC 601 is located outside the conference room and mobile phone 602 is available for communication” is sent to PC 601, and PC 601 sends a status notification request to mobile phone 602. In this example, the state of the mobile phone 602 is acquired and the state notification is performed only when the notification condition is satisfied.

  The message flow of the notification device and the notification condition specifying device in the third embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 19, the description of the “200 OK” response is omitted for the sake of simplification as in FIG.

  In FIG. 19, the PC 603 operating as a notification condition designating apparatus transmits SUBSCRIBE describing the notification conditions to the PC 601 operating as a notification apparatus. At this time, the notification condition is “NOT (sip: 601@example.com: place =“ meeting ”) AND sip: 602 @, which represents a condition that“ the location of the PC 601 is other than the conference room and the mobile phone 602 can talk ”. A message “example.com:state=“standby” ”is described in the SIP body part. When receiving the SUBSCRIBE, the PC 601 transmits a SUBSCRIBE for making a basic state notification request to the mobile phone 602.

  When receiving the SUBSCRIBE, the mobile phone 602 transmits NOTIFY describing the basic state to the PC 601. When the PC 601 receives NOTIFY, the PC 601 transmits NOTIFY describing the acquired basic state of the mobile phone 602 and the location state of the PC 601 itself to the PC 603. Thereafter, the mobile phone 603 transmits NOTIFY to the PC 601 every time the state changes. When the PC 601 receives NOTIFY from the mobile phone 603 or when the location of the PC 601 itself changes, the PC 601 checks whether the notification condition is satisfied. If the notification condition is not satisfied, the PC 601 does not transmit NOTIFY and satisfies the notification condition Only NOTIFY is transmitted to the PC 603 operating as the notified device.

  Here, returning to FIG. 18, the third embodiment will be described in detail.

  The PC 601 has a status item “place” representing the state of the place, and the place has three status values “Desk / meeting / other” representing “room / meeting room / others”. There are various methods for detecting the state of the location, such as a method for detecting the state of the location of the PC 601 by mounting an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag on the PC 601 and installing an RFID receiver in the room and the conference room. Conceivable.

  The mobile phone 602 has a state item “state” indicating the basic state, similar to the mobile phone 101 of the first embodiment, and the state indicates “standby / off / busy” indicating “standby / power off / busy”. Has three state values. The user 630 wants to contact the mobile phone of the user 620 and desires to display the status on the screen of the PC 603 when the user 620 becomes ready to make a call. Here, the telephone ready state indicates a state that “the user 620 is not in the conference room and the mobile phone 602 can talk”.

  As for the state of the user 620, the location state of the PC 601 owned is designated as “non-conference room”, and for the mobile phone 602, the basic state is designated as “capable of talking”. The user inputs notification conditions to the PC 603, and the PC 603 transmits SUBSCRIBE describing the input conditions as notification conditions to the PC 601. Here, a condition that “the location of the PC 601 is other than the conference room and the radio wave intensity of the mobile phone 602 is 1 or more” is designated as the notification condition. When receiving the NOTIFY from the PC 601, the PC 603 displays the information on the screen and informs the user 630 of the state of the user 620. Note that the apparatus configuration and operation of the PC 603 are the same as those of the PC 104 of the second embodiment, and thus detailed description thereof is omitted.

  When the PC 601 receives the SUBSCRIBE transmitted from the PC 603, it holds the notification conditions described therein. Then, SUBSCRIBE is transmitted to the mobile phone 602 to acquire the basic state. If the basic state of the mobile phone 602 and the location state of the PC 601 do not satisfy the notification condition, NOTIFY is not transmitted, and if the notification condition is satisfied, NOTIFY is transmitted to the PC 603. Details of the operation of the PC 601 will be described later. When the cellular phone 602 receives SUBSCRIBE from the PC 601, it transmits NOTIFY describing the basic state to the PC 601.

  Next, details of the operation of the PC 601 will be described. The device configuration of the PC 601 is the same as that of the presence server 100 of the second embodiment. Also, as in the first and second embodiments, the description of the “200 OK” response operation for each message is omitted for the sake of simplicity. First, the SUBSCRIBE reception operation of the PC 601 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 20 is a SUBSCRIBE reception flowchart of PC 601 which is a notification apparatus according to Embodiment 4 of the present invention. The configuration of PC 601 that is the notification device of the present embodiment is the same as the configuration of presence server 100 that is the notification device in Embodiment 2 of the present invention shown in FIG.

  In FIG. 20, the communication unit 505 receives SUBSCRIBE transmitted from the PC 603 serving as a notification condition designating device (S601), and sends the received SUBSCRIBE to the control unit 501 (S602). The control unit 501 saves the notification condition and the notification destination URI described in SUBSCRIBE in the notification condition holding unit 503 (S603). Here, the notification condition is described as “NOT (sip: 601@example.com: place =“ meeting ”) AND sip: 602@example.com: state =“ standby ””, and is stored. The URI described in the Contact header is stored as the notification destination URI.

  Thereafter, the URI of the mobile phone 602 described in the notification condition is sent to the message generator 504 (S604). The message generation unit 504 generates a SUBSCRIBE in which the received URI is described in the Request-URI (S605), and sends it to the communication unit 505 (S606). The communication unit 505 transmits SUBSCRIBE to the mobile phone 602 (S607), and waits for reception of NOTIFY for SUBSCRIBE (S608).

  When the communication unit 505 receives NOTIFY from the mobile phone 602 (S609), the communication unit 505 sends the received NOTIFY to the control unit 501 (S610). The control unit 501 stores the state described in NOTIFY in the state management database 502 (S611). For example, when the state “sip: 602@example.com: state =“ busy ”is described in NOTIFY, sip: 602@example.com in the information management database 502 is described. The state value of the state item “state” possessed by the URI “com” is changed to “busy”.

  Thereafter, the control unit 501 acquires the state of the device described in the NOTIFY notification condition transmitted from the PC 603 from the state management database 502 (S612). For example, when the state condition is “NOT (sip: 601@example.com: place =“ meeting ”) AND sip: 602@example.com: state =“ standby ””, sip: 601 @ example. com place and sip: 602@example.com. Each state of com state is acquired. The state of the PC 601 itself is stored in the state management database 502 every time the state changes.

  The control unit 501 sends the acquired state to the message generation unit 504 (S613), and the message generation unit 504 generates NOTIFY describing the state (S614). The message generation unit 504 sends the generated NOTIFY to the communication unit 505 (S615), and the communication unit 505 transmits NOTIFY to the PC 603 that is the notified device (S616).

  Next, the NOTIFY reception operation of the PC 601 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 21 is a NOTIFY reception flowchart of PC 601 which is a notification device according to Embodiment 3 of the present invention. 21 is different from the operation of the first NOTIFY (NOTIFY with respect to SUBSCRIBE) from the mobile phone 602. For the first NOTIFY, the operation shown in the flowchart of FIG. 20 is performed.

  In FIG. 21, the communication unit 505 receives NOTIFY from the mobile phone 602 (S701), and sends the received NOTIFY to the control unit 501 (S702). The control unit 501 stores the state described in NOTIFY in the state management database 502 (S703). Here, the steps from S704 to S713 are the same as the steps from S204 to S213 in the first embodiment, and thus the description thereof is omitted. Note that the steps from S704 to S713 are also executed when the state of the PC 601 itself as the notification device changes and the state stored in the state management database 502 is changed, and NOTIFY is generated as necessary. .

  As described above, in the third embodiment, the PC 603 serving as the notification condition designation device transmits SUBSCRIBE describing the notification conditions to the PC 601 serving as the notification device, and the PC 601 acquires the state described in the notification conditions. In the example, SUBSCRIBE is transmitted to the mobile phone 602 to acquire the state, and NOTIFY is transmitted to the PC 603 that is a notified device only when the notification condition is satisfied. As a result, even when there is no presence server, notification conditions can be specified, network resources can be used effectively, and NOTIFY transmission / reception loads of the PC 601 serving as the notification device and the PC 603 serving as the notified device are reduced. Further, the configuration as in the third embodiment eliminates the need for server maintenance.

  As described above, in the notification device, the notification condition specifying device, and the state notification method according to the present invention, unnecessary notification information is transmitted by specifying a notification timing with a logical condition between a plurality of state conditions and state conditions. The communication device can be used effectively, the notification information transmission / reception load is reduced, and the notification device for notifying the state of the device or the user of the device, the notification condition designating device, It is useful as a server or the like in a device status management service.

Network configuration diagram including a notification device according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention The message flow figure which shows the operation | movement of the notification apparatus in Embodiment 1 of this invention Configuration diagram of a notification device according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention The flowchart which shows the notification condition setting operation | movement of the notification apparatus in Embodiment 1 of this invention. The flowchart which shows the PUBLISH reception operation | movement of the notification apparatus in Embodiment 1 of this invention. Configuration diagram of a notified device that receives a notification from a notification device according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention The flowchart which shows NOTIFY reception operation | movement of the to-be-notified apparatus which receives a notification from the notification apparatus in Embodiment 1 of this invention. The figure which shows the data structure of NOTIFY transmitted from the notification apparatus in Embodiment 1 of this invention to a to-be-notified apparatus. The figure which shows the data structure of the state management database of the notification apparatus in Embodiment 1 of this invention. The figure which shows the data structure of the notification condition holding | maintenance part of the notification apparatus in Embodiment 1 of this invention. Message flow diagram of notification device and notification condition designating device in Embodiment 2 of the present invention Configuration diagram of PC 104 which is a notification condition designating device and a notified device in Embodiment 2 of the present invention The flowchart which shows the SUBSCRIBE transmission operation of PC104 which is a notification condition designation | designated apparatus and notification apparatus in Embodiment 2 of this invention. Configuration diagram of notification device in embodiment 2 and embodiment 3 of the present invention The flowchart which shows the SUBSCRIBE reception operation | movement of the notification apparatus in Embodiment 2 of this invention. SUBSCRIBE data format diagram showing notification conditions transmitted from the notification condition designating device in the second exemplary embodiment of the present invention Data format diagram of notification conditions transmitted from the notification condition designating device in the second exemplary embodiment of the present invention Network configuration diagram including a notification device and a notification condition designating device in Embodiment 3 of the present invention Message flow diagram of notification device and notification condition designating device in embodiment 3 The flowchart which shows the SUBSCRIBE reception operation | movement of the notification apparatus in Embodiment 4 of this invention. The flowchart which shows NOTIFY reception operation | movement of the notification apparatus in Embodiment 3 of this invention. The figure which shows the network structure in the presence service using the SIP event notification function including the conventional notification apparatus and notification condition designation | designated apparatus and to-be-notified apparatus Message flow diagram of presence service using SIP in conventional notification device and notified device Message flow diagram of event filter in conventional notification device and notification condition specifying device

Explanation of symbols

100 Presence server 101, 603 Mobile phone 102, 104, 601, 603 PC
103 Fixed telephone 110, 610 Network 120, 130, 620, 630 User 201, 301, 401, 501 Control unit 202, 306, 402 Screen output unit 307, 403 Key input unit 304, 404, 504 Message generation unit 203, 305, 405, 505 Communication unit 302, 502 State management database 303, 503 Notification condition holding unit

Claims (15)

Notification condition storage means for storing a notification condition that is a condition for notification to the notified device, status information acquisition means for acquiring status information provided by an individual device or a status information provider that is a user of the device, and the status And a transmission unit that transmits notification information to the notified device when a plurality of state information acquired by the information acquisition unit satisfies the notification condition, wherein the notification condition is based on the plurality of state conditions. Each of the state conditions constituting the plurality of state conditions includes a pair of a state item and a state value of a state information issuer corresponding to each of the state conditions apparatus. The notification device according to claim 1, wherein the transmission unit does not transmit the notification information to the notified device when a logical condition including a plurality of state information acquired by the state information acquisition unit does not satisfy the notification condition. The notification device according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the status information issuers is a notification device. The notification device according to claim 1, further comprising a notification condition receiving unit that receives the notification condition, and storing the notification condition received by the notification condition receiving unit in the notification condition storage unit. The notification device according to claim 1, wherein the logical condition includes at least one of AND (and), OR (or), and NOT (negative). The notification device according to claim 1, wherein the transmission unit uses SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) to transmit the notification information. A notification condition acquisition unit that acquires a notification condition that is a condition for the notification device to transmit notification information to the notified device; and a notification condition transmission unit that transmits the notification condition acquired by the notification condition acquisition unit to the notification device. The notification condition designating device includes: the notification condition is indicated by a logical condition including a plurality of state conditions, and the individual state conditions constituting the plurality of state conditions are state information corresponding to the individual state conditions. A notification condition designating device comprising a set of issuer status items and status values, wherein the status information issuer is an individual device or a user of the device. The notification condition designating device according to claim 7, wherein the logical condition includes at least one of AND (and), OR (or), and NOT (negative). The notification condition designating device according to claim 7 or 8, wherein the notification condition transmitting means uses SIP for transmitting the notification condition. The notification condition designating device according to any one of claims 7 to 9, wherein the notification condition designating device is the notified device. A notification condition storing step for storing a notification condition that is a condition to be notified to the notified device, a state information acquiring step for acquiring state information provided by an individual device or a state information provider that is a user of the device, and the state A transmission step of transmitting notification information to the notified device when a plurality of state information acquired in the information acquisition step satisfies the notification condition, wherein the notification condition includes a plurality of state conditions Each state condition constituting the plurality of state conditions includes a set of a state item and a state value of a state information issuer corresponding to each of the state conditions. Status notification method. The state notification method according to claim 11, further comprising a notification condition reception step of receiving the notification condition, wherein the notification condition received in the notification condition reception step is stored in the notification condition storage step. The state notification method according to claim 11 or 12, wherein the logical condition includes at least one of AND (and), OR (or), and NOT (negative). The status notification method according to claim 11, wherein the transmission step uses SIP for transmission of the notification information. 15. The status notification method according to claim 12, wherein the notification condition reception step uses SIP for reception of the notification condition.

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