WO2018065932A1

WO2018065932A1 - Method for referencing related messages

Info

Publication number: WO2018065932A1
Application number: PCT/IB2017/056148
Authority: WO
Inventors: Grant Anthony KARSTEL
Original assignee: Karstel Grant Anthony
Priority date: 2016-10-05
Filing date: 2017-10-05
Publication date: 2018-04-12

Abstract

Method and system for referencing related messages (102, 103, 106, 107, 301, 302, 305, and 306) in an electronic message string. The method comprises receiving one or more messages (103, 305) from at least one sender (100) in the message string, receiving input from a user to access a message reference menu (202), displaying the message reference menu (202) so as to include one or more prior received messages (103, 305) in the message string on the device (101) of the message receiver, receiving input from the user selecting one or more messages (305) from the message reference menu (202), creating a reference (307) to the selected one or more messages (305), receiving a responding message (301) from the user, submitting the responding message (301) to the message string together with the reference (307) to the selected one or more messages (305) and displaying a common reference symbol (303, 307) in the message string, at or near the selected one or more messages (305) as well as the responding message (301).

Description

METHOD FOR REFERENCING RELATED MESSAGES

CROSS-REFERENCE(S) TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority from South African provisional patent application number 2016/06822 filed on 5 October 2016, which is incorporated by reference herein.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to a method for referencing related messages in a multi-party messaging application.

BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION

Messaging applications are widely used to converse by means of instant messaging. The conversation may be a dialogue between two individuals and may furthermore be in a group comprising three or more individuals simultaneously. Due to the delay between reading a message and responding thereto, difficulty may arise to ascertain from a responding message, which original message the responding message is in response to. This problem is compounded in a group discussion, where it may furthermore be uncertain as to whom the person in the group may be to whom the responding message is addressed.

The invention disclosed herein aims to alleviate these problems, at least to some extent.

The preceding discussion of the background to the invention is intended only to facilitate an understanding of the present invention. It should be appreciated that the discussion is not an acknowledgment or admission that any of the material referred to was part of the common general knowledge in the art as at the priority date of the application.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In accordance with this invention there is provided a method for referencing related messages in an electronic message string, the method being executed at a computing device of a message receiver and comprising: receiving one or more messages from at least one sender in the message string; receiving input from a user to access a message reference menu; displaying the message reference menu on the device of the message receiver, the message reference menu being configured to display one or more prior received messages in the message string; receiving input from the user selecting one or more messages from the message reference menu; creating a reference to the selected one or more messages; receiving input from the user representing a responding message; submitting the responding message to the message string together with the reference to the selected one or more messages; and displaying a common reference symbol in the message string, at or near the selected one or more messages as well as the responding message.

Further features provide for the step of displaying the message reference menu to include displaying a temporary duplication of the original message string which allows the message receiver to scroll through all, or a select number of, the previous messages in the message string; and for the step of submitting the responding message to the message string to include transmitting the responding message, together with the reference to the selected one or more messages, to a computing device of at least one alternative participant in the messaging string for display in a corresponding message string on the alternative participant device, together with a common reference symbol at or near the selected one or more messages as well as the responding message.

It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the method may equally be defined from the perspective of a device of a message receiver that received a response message together with a reference to one or more earlier messages in a message string to which the response message is in response to, for display on the device of the message receiver together with a common reference symbol at or near the selected one of more messages as well as the response message.

The invention extends to a system for referencing related messages in an electronic message string, the system comprising: a receiving component for receiving one or more messages from a sender in the message string; an input receiving component for receiving input from a user to access a message reference menu; a display component for displaying the message reference menu on a device of the message receiver, the message reference menu being configured to display one or more prior received messages in the message string; an input receiving component for receiving input from the user selecting one or more messages from the message reference menu; a referencing component for creating a reference to the selected one or more messages; a responding message receiving component for receiving input from the user representing a responding message; a submitting component for submitting the responding message to the message string together with the reference to the selected one or more messages; and a reference symbol display component for displaying a common reference symbol in the message string, at or near the selected one or more messages as well as the responding message. An embodiment of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the drawings: is a schematic representation of a dialogue between two individuals by means of a messaging application on their mobile phones; is a schematic representation of the dialogue of Figure 1 in which having referencing means; is a schematic representation of the dialogue of Figure 2 in which the referencing means has been utilised; and illustrates an example of a computing device in which various aspects of the disclosure may be implemented.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION WITH REFERENCE TO THE DRAWINGS

To illustrate the problem solved by the present invention, Figure 1 shows a schematic representation of a first mobile phone (100) and a second mobile phone (101) on which an exemplary dialogue is held between two exemplary individuals, Jack and John, in a messaging application of the mobile phones. The mobile phones (100, 101) each has a message input box (110, 112) and a message menu (111, 113).

In the present example, Jack sends a first message (102) to John and the received first message (103) is displayed on John's mobile phone (101). Jack sends a second message (104) to John that is unrelated to the first message (102) without allowing John time to respond to the first received message (103).

John then responds with a message (106) relating to the first received message (103). When Jack receives John's response (107) he may interpret the response (107) as being related to either of his sent messages (102, 104). Due to the unrelated nature of the first and second messages (102, 104), the received response (107) may be misleading or inappropriate when mistakenly interpreted as a response to the incorrect message.

Therefore, before John sends a next response, the present invention may allow John to access the message menu (113) to reference the message to which his next response relates.

Figure 2 is a schematic showing a message reference menu (201), which appears when John accesses the message menu (113) by, for example, pressing the message menu icon (113) before he starts typing a response. The message reference menu (201) displays all or a select number of the messages received from Jack (202, 203). John may proceed to select a message from the menu (201) to which his next response will relate, thereby creating a reference (204) to the appropriate message. It is foreseen that the message reference menu (201) may in fact show a temporary duplication of the original message string which allows John to scroll through all, or a select number of, the previous messages in the message string and select the one which he wishes to reference and respond to.

Figure 3 is a schematic representation showing the resulting display after John has referenced the desired message and sent his next response. Both sent and received responses (301 , 302) will indicate a reference symbol (303, 304). Furthermore, the earlier message to which the response relates (305, 306), as selected by John from the message reference menu (201) of Figure 2, will show a corresponding reference symbol (307, 308), thereby indicating to both individuals to which initial message a particular reply relates.

It will be appreciated that the reference may be indicated by various means, including matching font colours, matching background colours, and the like. Furthermore, the method is scalable to a group conversation where, when selecting a message from the message reference menu, all received messages may be displayed and may subsequently be selected so as to reference it in a subsequently sent response.

Figure 4 illustrates an example of a computing device (400) in which various aspects of the disclosure may be implemented. The computing device (400) may be embodied as any form of data processing device including a personal computing device (e.g. laptop or desktop computer), a server computer (which may be self-contained, physically distributed over a number of locations), a client computer, or a communication device, such as a mobile phone (e.g. cellular telephone), satellite phone, tablet computer, personal digital assistant or the like. Different embodiments of the computing device may dictate the inclusion or exclusion of various components or subsystems described below.

The computing device (400) may be suitable for storing and executing computer program code. The various participants and elements in the previously described system diagrams may use any suitable number of subsystems or components of the computing device (400) to facilitate the functions described herein. The computing device (400) may include subsystems or components interconnected via a communication infrastructure (405) (for example, a communications bus, a network, etc.). The computing device (400) may include one or more processors (410) and at least one memory component in the form of computer-readable media. The one or more processors (410) may include one or more of: CPUs, graphical processing units (GPUs), microprocessors, field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and the like. In some configurations, a number of processors may be provided and may be arranged to carry out calculations simultaneously. In some implementations various subsystems or components of the computing device (400) may be distributed over a number of physical locations (e.g. in a distributed, cluster or cloud-based computing configuration) and appropriate software units may be arranged to manage and/or process data on behalf of remote devices. The memory components may include system memory (415), which may include read only memory (ROM) and random access memory (RAM). A basic input/output system (BIOS) may be stored in ROM. System software may be stored in the system memory (415) including operating system software. The memory components may also include secondary memory (420). The secondary memory (420) may include a fixed disk (421), such as a hard disk drive, and, optionally, one or more storage interfaces (422) for interfacing with storage components (423), such as removable storage components (e.g. magnetic tape, optical disk, flash memory drive, external hard drive, removable memory chip, etc.), network attached storage components (e.g. NAS drives), remote storage components (e.g. cloud-based storage) or the like. The computing device (400) may include an external communications interface (430) for operation of the computing device (400) in a networked environment enabling transfer of data between multiple computing devices (400) and/or the Internet. Data transferred via the external communications interface (430) may be in the form of signals, which may be electronic, electromagnetic, optical, radio, or other types of signal. The external communications interface (430) may enable communication of data between the computing device (400) and other computing devices including servers and external storage facilities. Web services may be accessible by and/or from the computing device (400) via the communications interface (430). The external communications interface (430) may be configured for connection to wireless communication channels (e.g., a cellular telephone network, wireless local area network (e.g. using Wi-Fi™), satellite-phone network, Satellite Internet Network, etc.) and may include an associated wireless transfer element, such as an antenna and associated circuity. The external communications interface (430) may include a subscriber identity module (SIM) in the form of an integrated circuit that stores an international mobile subscriber identity and the related key used to identify and authenticate a subscriber using the computing device (400). One or more subscriber identity modules may be removable from or embedded in the computing device (400).

The computer-readable media in the form of the various memory components may provide storage of computer-executable instructions, data structures, program modules, software units and other data. A computer program product may be provided by a computer-readable medium having stored computer-readable program code executable by the central processor (410). A computer program product may be provided by a non-transient computer-readable medium, or may be provided via a signal or other transient means via the communications interface (430).

Interconnection via the communication infrastructure (405) allows the one or more processors (410) to communicate with each subsystem or component and to control the execution of instructions from the memory components, as well as the exchange of information between subsystems or components. Peripherals (such as printers, scanners, cameras, or the like) and input/output (I/O) devices (such as a mouse, touchpad, keyboard, microphone, touch-sensitive display, input buttons, speakers and the like) may couple to or be integrally formed with the computing device (400) either directly or via an I/O controller (435). One or more displays (445) (which may be touch-sensitive displays) may be coupled to or integrally formed with the computing device (400) via a display (445) or video adapter (440).

The computing device (400) may include a geographical location element (455) which is arranged to determine the geographical location of the computing device (400). The geographical location element (455) may for example be implemented by way of a global positioning system (GPS), or similar, receiver module. In some implementations the geographical location element (455) may implement an indoor positioning system, using for example communication channels such as cellular telephone or Wi-Fi™ networks and/or beacons (e.g. Bluetooth™ Low Energy (BLE) beacons, iBeacons™, etc.) to determine or approximate the geographical location of the computing device (400). In some implementations, the geographical location element (455) may implement inertial navigation to track and determine the geographical location of the communication device using an initial set point and inertial measurement data. The foregoing description has been presented for the purpose of illustration; it is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed. Persons skilled in the relevant art can appreciate that many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above disclosure.

Any of the steps, operations, components or processes described herein may be performed or implemented with one or more hardware or software units, alone or in combination with other devices. In one embodiment, a software unit is implemented with a computer program product comprising a non-transient computer-readable medium containing computer program code, which can be executed by a processor for performing any or all of the steps, operations, or processes described. Software units or functions described in this application may be implemented as computer program code using any suitable computer language such as, for example, Java™, C++, or Perl™ using, for example, conventional or object-oriented techniques. The computer program code may be stored as a series of instructions, or commands on a non- transitory computer-readable medium, such as a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a magnetic medium such as a hard-drive, or an optical medium such as a CD- ROM. Any such computer-readable medium may also reside on or within a single computational apparatus, and may be present on or within different computational apparatuses within a system or network.

Flowchart illustrations and block diagrams of methods, systems, and computer program products according to embodiments are used herein. Each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, may provide functions which may be implemented by computer readable program instructions. In some alternative implementations, the functions identified by the blocks may take place in a different order to that shown in the flowchart illustrations.

The language used in the specification has been principally selected for readability and instructional purposes, and it may not have been selected to delineate or circumscribe the inventive subject matter. It is therefore intended that the scope of the invention be limited not by this detailed description, but rather by any claims that issue on an application based hereon. Accordingly, the disclosure of the embodiments of the invention is intended to be illustrative, but not limiting, of the scope of the invention, which is set forth in the following claims.

Finally, throughout the specification and claims unless the contents requires otherwise the word 'comprise' or variations such as 'comprises' or 'comprising' will be understood to imply the inclusion of a stated integer or group of integers but not the exclusion of any other integer group of integers.

Claims

CLAIMS: 1. A method for referencing related messages in an electronic message string, the method being executed at a computing device of a message receiver and comprising:

receiving one or more messages from at least one sender in the message string; receiving input from a user to access a message reference menu; displaying the message reference menu on the device of the message receiver, the message reference menu being configured to display one or more prior received messages in the message string;

receiving input from the user selecting one or more messages from the message reference menu;

creating a reference to the selected one or more messages;

receiving input from the user representing a responding message; submitting the responding message to the message string together with the reference to the selected one or more messages; and

displaying a common reference symbol in the message string, at or near the selected one or more messages as well as the responding message. 2. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the step of displaying the message reference menu includes displaying a temporary duplication of the original message string which allows the message receiver to scroll through all, or a select number of, the previous messages in the message string. 3. The method as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2, wherein the step of submitting the responding message to the message string includes transmitting the responding message, together with the reference to the selected one or more messages, to a computing device of at least one alternative participant in the messaging string for display in a corresponding message string on the alternative participant device, together with a common reference symbol at or near the selected one or more messages as well as the responding message. 4. A system for referencing related messages in an electronic message string, the system comprising:

a receiving component for receiving one or more messages from a sender in the message string;

an input receiving component for receiving input from a user to access a message reference menu; a display component for displaying the message reference menu on a device of the message receiver, the message reference menu being configured to display one or more prior received messages in the message string;

an input receiving component for receiving input from the user selecting one or more messages from the message reference menu;

a referencing component for creating a reference to the selected one or more messages;

a responding message receiving component for receiving input from the user representing a responding message;

a submitting component for submitting the responding message to the message string together with the reference to the selected one or more messages; and

a reference symbol display component for displaying a common reference symbol in the message string, at or near the selected one or more messages as well as the responding message.