WO2021249103A1

WO2021249103A1 - Method and system for merging linked notifications

Info

Publication number: WO2021249103A1
Application number: PCT/CN2021/093621
Authority: WO
Inventors: Milan pradipbhai PATEL; Tiwary SUMIT KUMAR; Nishant Chauhan
Original assignee: Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp., Ltd.
Priority date: 2020-06-11
Filing date: 2021-05-13
Publication date: 2021-12-16

Abstract

The disclosure provides methods and system for merging linked notifications. The method receives a plurality of notifications of the events associated with the activity of a user. The method thereafter analyse each of the plurality of notifications to identify the link in between at least two of the plurality of notifications. The link in between the at least two notification is identified based on a successful mapping of one or more parameters. Next, the method merges the at least two identified linked notifications to generate a single notification. Next, the method displays the single notification to the user.

Description

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MERGING LINKED NOTIFICATIONS

FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to the field of mobile communication and more particularly to a method and system for merging linked notifications.

BACKGROUND

This section is intended to provide information relating to field of the invention and thus, any approach or functionality described below should not be assumed to be qualified as prior art merely by its inclusion in this section.

With the advancement in the communication technology, the communication device is widely used by users to perform a certain number of tasks such as for entertainment purpose, for communication purpose, for booking a cab, for ordering food, for performing transaction. Further, the user receives one or more notifications associated with the task performed by the user on the communication device. For instance, when the user does online recharge through a payment gateway then the user also receives multiple notifications associated with that transaction like notification in the form of message of successful recharge, notification from the bank of debited charge, notification from the mail account of occurring of the transaction and the like. Thus, the user receives multiple notifications for even a single task which leads to either mislead of other notifications or took too much time of the user to read each notification.

Thus, in view of these and other existing limitations, there arises an imperative need to provide a solution to overcome the above-mentioned limitations and to provide a more efficient method and system for managing the notification of the users and to minimize the number of notifications received by the user.

SUMMARY

This section is provided to introduce certain objects and aspects of the present disclosure in a simplified form that are further described below in the detailed description. This summary is not intended to identify the key features or the scope of the claimed subject matter.

To overcome at least a few problems provided in the previous section, an object of the present disclosure is to provide a novel method and system for merging linked notifications. It is another object of the present disclosure to save time of the user by providing a single notification for the linked notifications.

To achieve the aforementioned objectives, the present disclosure provides a method and system for merging linked notifications. One aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method of merging notifications. The method comprises, receiving, at a Transceiver Unit, a plurality of notifications of the events associated with the activity of a user. The method thereafter comprises analysing, by a Processing Unit, each of the plurality of notifications to identify the link in between at least two of the plurality of notifications. The link in between the at least two notification is identified based on a successful mapping of one or more parameters. Next, the method comprises merging, by the Processing Unit, the at least two identified linked notifications to generate a single notification. Next, the method comprises displaying, by the Display Unit, the single notification to the user.

Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to a system for merging linked notifications. The system comprises a Transceiver Unit, a Processing Unit, and a Display Unit. The Transceiver Unit is configured to receive a plurality of notifications of the events associated with the activity of a user. The Processing Unit is configured to analyse each of the plurality of notifications to identify the link in between at least two of the plurality of notifications. The link in between the at least two notification is identified based on a successful mapping of one or more parameters. The Processing Unit is configured to merge the at least two identified linked notifications to generate a single notification. The Display Unit is configured to display the single notification to the user.

Yet another aspect of the present disclosure relates to a user equipment for merging linked notifications. The user equipment comprises a system. The system is configured to receive a plurality of notifications of the events associated with the activity of a user. Next, the system is configured to analyse each of the plurality of notifications to identify the link in between at least two of the plurality of notifications. The link in between the at least two notification is identified based on a successful mapping of one or more parameters. Thereafter, the system is configured to merge the at least two identified linked notifications to generate a single notification. The system is configured to display the single notification to the user.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein, and constitute a part of this disclosure, illustrate exemplary embodiments of the disclosed methods and systems in which like reference numerals refer to the same parts throughout the different drawings. Components in the drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon clearly illustrating the principles of the present disclosure. Some drawings may indicate the components using block diagrams and may not represent the internal circuitry of each component. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that disclosure of such drawings includes disclosure of electrical components, electronic components or circuitry commonly used to implement such components.

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of the system [100] for merging of linked notifications, in accordance with exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary method [200] of merging linked notifications, in accordance with exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary use case of the present disclosure, in accordance with exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure

The foregoing shall be more apparent from the following more detailed description of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, various specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of embodiments of the present disclosure. It will be apparent, however, that embodiments of the present disclosure may be practiced without these specific details. Several features described hereafter can each be used independently of one another or with any combination of other features. An individual feature may not address any of the problems discussed above or might address only some of the problems discussed above. Some of the problems discussed above might not be fully addressed by any of the features described herein.

The present disclosure provides a solution relating to an efficient way of managing notifications. More specifically, the present disclosure provides a method and system for merging linked notifications. The present disclosure enables merging of the linked notifications to provide a single notification to the user. The present disclosure provides merging of the linked or connected notifications based on the mapping of the one or more parameters associated with said notifications. The present disclosure merge at least two notifications to generate a single notification covering all the relevant information of the linked notifications.

As used herein, “user equipment” , “user device” and/or “communication device” , may be any electrical, electronic, electromechanical and computing device or equipment, having one or more Transceiver Unit installed on it. The communication device may include but is not limited to, a mobile phone, smartphone, laptop, a general-purpose computer, desktop, personal digital assistant, tablet computer, wearable device or any other computing device which is capable of implementing the features of the present disclosure and is obvious to a person skilled in the art.

As used herein the “Transceiver Unit” may include but not limited to a transmitter to transmit data to one or more destinations and a receiver to receive data from one or more sources. Further, the Transceiver Unit may include any other similar unit obvious to a person skilled in the art, to implement the features of the present disclosure.

As used herein, a “Processing Unit” or “processor” includes one or more processors, wherein processor refers to any logic circuitry for processing instructions. A processor may be a general-purpose processor, a special-purpose processor, a conventional processor, a digital signal processor, a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in association with a DSP core, a controller, a microcontroller, Application Specific Integrated Circuits, Field Programmable Gate Array circuits, any other type of integrated circuits, etc. The processor may perform signal coding data processing, input/output processing, and/or any other functionality that enables the working of the system according to the present disclosure. More specifically, the processor or Processing Unit is a hardware processor.

As used herein, “Display Unit” refers to a machine or device including any mechanism to display the various information to the users. Further, the Display unit may refer to the screen of the User Equipment to show or present information to the user who is associated with the User Equipment. Further, the Display Unit may include any other similar unit obvious to a person skilled in the art, to implement the features of the present disclosure.

As used herein, “Storage Unit” refers to a machine or computer-readable medium including any mechanism for storing information in a form readable by a computer or similar machine. For example, the Storage Unit includes read-only memory ( “ROM” ) , random access memory ( “RAM” ) , Cloud storage, remote storage, magnetic disk storage media, optical storage media, flash memory devices or other types of machine-accessible storage media. Further, the cloud storage refers to storing the data at the cloud server.

The present disclosure is further explained in detail below with reference to the diagrams. FIG. 1 illustrates a system [100] for merging of linked notifications, in accordance with exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in Fig. 1, the system [100] comprises at least one Transceiver Unit [102] , at least one Processing Unit [104] , at least one Display Unit [106] , and at least one Storage Unit [108] , wherein all the components are assumed to be connected to each other unless otherwise indicated below. Also, in Fig. 1 only one Transceiver Unit [102] , only one Processing Unit [104] , only one Display Unit [106] , and only one Storage Unit [108] is shown, however the system [100] may comprise multiple such units and modules or the system may comprise any such numbers of said units and modules, as may be required to implement the features of the present disclosure. Also, there may be one or more sub-units of said units and modules of the system [100] and the same is not shown in the Fig. 1 for the purpose of clarity.

The system includes the Transceiver Unit [102] . The Transceiver Unit [102] of the present disclosure may include but not limited to one or more transmitters for transmitting data to one or more destinations, one or more receivers for receiving of data from one or more sources, and any other similar units obvious to a person skilled in the art, to implement the features of the present disclosure. In the present disclosure, the Transceiver Unit [102] acts as a receiver to receive a plurality of notifications of the events associated with the activity of a user. In general, the notification refers to a message, email, icon or another symbol that appears on the screen to get the attention of the user. Further, the activity of the user may refer to the interaction of the user with the user equipment for a number of task or events. For instance, the user may interact with the user equipment to perform any transaction, to order food online, to book a cab, to play online games with friends and the like. Also, the notifications received by the user are associated with the events or tasks performed by the user. For example, the user may receive one or more notifications from various sources (e.g., messages, emails, payment apps) in case the user perform any transaction on a third-party application.

The system includes the Processing Unit [104] . The Processing Unit [104] is connected to the Transceiver Unit [102] . The Processing Unit [104] is configured to analyse each of the plurality of notifications received by the Transceiver Unit [102] . The Processing Unit [104] analyse the received plurality of notifications to identify the link in between at least two of the plurality of notifications. The link in between at least two notification is identified based on a successful mapping of one or more parameters of said notifications. The one or more parameters associated with the notifications include but are not limited to text, number, content of notification, object of notification, icons present in the notification, symbol present in the notifications, tags, picture, id, time of notification, type of notification, category of notification, source of notification. In an example, when the user performs any transaction to order food online, the user may receive multiple notifications associated with the transaction and the one or more parameters of said notifications may include transaction id, amount, payment application icon, mail icon and the like. Further, the Processing Unit [104] analyse only active notifications i.e., those notifications which are not read or swiped by the User.

In one embodiment, the Processing Unit [104] analyse the notifications based on the receiving time of the notifications. For instance, the Processing Unit [104] may analyse the notifications received in a predefined time period. In an example, the user may have already received three notifications within 2 minutes from various sources then the Processing Unit [104] may wait for other notifications till the waiting time is less than or equal to a threshold time (2 minutes 30 seconds) . In another embodiment, the Processing Unit [104] may analyse the notifications based on the number of notifications. For instance, the Processing Unit [104] analyse the notifications till the number of notifications is equal to a predefined threshold level (for e.g., 5) .

The Processing Unit [104] is configured to merge the at least two identified linked notifications to generate a single notification. The single notification could be considered as a smart notification to provide all the relevant information only in a single notification. The single notification covers the common information present in the at least two identified linked notifications. The Processing Unit [104] merge the at least two identified linked notifications to prevent distraction for user to read multiple notifications for a single task. Further, the Processing Unit [104] merge the at least two identified linked notifications so that the user can view single notification to get information from all the sources like mail, transaction app and the like. Moreover, the single notification is generated to summarize the information and to remove the redundant text received from multiple notifications.

The Processing unit [104] is further configured to generate the single notification automatically or based on the preference of the user for the source of notifications. The automatic generation of the single notification may include use of the artificial intelligence technique for identification of the cluster of the linked or merged notification and using the cluster of linked notification to generate the single notification for the user. The generation of the single notification based on the preference of the user includes inputs of the user for the source of notification for which the user wants to generate the single notification. The source of notification may include combination of at least two applications preferred by the user for merging and generating the single notification. For example, the user may choose the combination of two application as the preference input for getting the single notification out of the notifications received from the two preferred applications. Thus, the notification received from the user preference applications will automatically get merged to generate the single notification.

The Processing Unit [104] is configured to notify the user about the single notifications through various ways such as by sending sound alert, by sending vibration alert, by sending flash alert. Further, the Processing Unit [104] is configured to notify the user for the generated single notification through a combined notification alert. The combined notification alert refers to a single alert used to notify the user instead of notifying the user for each separate notification and thus lead to less distraction for the user. The combined notification alert uses a specific notification sound or a specific vibration to provide an alert to the user. For example, the processing unit may notify the user only for the single generated notification instead of notifying the user for separate notifications used to generate the single notification. As used herein, the specific notification sound or the specific vibration may include a predefined sound or vibration chosen by the user to receive at the time of getting the single notification.

The system includes the Display Unit [106] . The Display Unit [106] is configured to display the single notification to the User. The Display Unit [106] display the single notification to the user on the screen of the user equipment. Further, the single notification is displayed in the notification bar. Moreover, the single notification is displayed in such a way that all the icons/symbols associated with various applications are displayed on one side and the relevant text or information is displayed on another side of the notification bar.

The Display Unit [106] is further configured to display the single notification to the user in one of an automatically generated view or in a customized view. The automatically generated view may include a pre-defined or a fixed view to display the single notification. For example, in a predefined view the text details may be displayed to the user on one side of the screen and icons/symbols on another side of the screen. The display of the single notification to the user in a customized view includes display of the single notification as per the user defined layout and user inputs. The user can define the layout of the view or can customize the view as per the interest and requirement. For example, the user may define the place of the single notification, the area of the single notification, the font, colour, size of the single notification, the information in the single notification and the like. Thus, the single notification is displayed to the user on the screen of the user equipment in either an automatically generated view or in a customized view.

The system further includes the Storage Unit [108] . The Storage Unit [108] is configured to store the data associated with the plurality of notifications and the data associated with the merging of the notifications. The Storage Unit [108] further stores the data required for generating the single notifications and stores the data associated with the linked notifications. In an example, the Storage Unit [108] stores the analysed data, stores the mapped data, stores the tag and icon data identified from the plurality of notifications. The Storage Unit [108] further include the pre-stored data required for mapping the identified tags and icon of the received notifications. The Storage Unit [108] stores all the relevant data required to merge the at least two similar notifications.

Referring to Fig. 2, an exemplary method flow diagram [200] , depicting method of merging linked notifications, in accordance with exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure is shown. As shown in Fig. 2, the method begins at step [202] .

At step [204] , the method comprises receiving, at a Transceiver Unit [102] , a plurality of notifications of the events associated with the activity of a user. In an example, the event may include online transaction, online shopping, online food order, online book cab, playing game online, using social applications, online chatting with friends and the like. Further, as an example, the plurality of notifications of such events may include notification of a missed message, notification related to online transaction, notification of receiving OTP for booking a cab, notification of invitation from a user to play game and the like. The plurality of notifications may be received from the Plurality of applications used to perform certain tasks.

At step [206] , the method comprises analysing, by a Processing Unit [104] , each of the plurality of notifications to identify the link in between at least two of the plurality of notifications. The link in between at least two notification is identified based on a successful mapping of one or more parameters of said notifications. The one or more parameters associated with the notifications include but are not limited to text, number, content of notification, object of notification, icons present in the notification, symbol present in the notifications, tags, picture, id, time of notification, type of notification, category of notification, source of notification. In an example, when the user performs any transaction to order food online, the user may receive multiple notifications associated with the transaction. The user may receive a first notification of receipt of the amount to be paid for a trip booked through a cab booking app. The user may receive a second notification of the amount paid to the cab booking app. The user may receive a third notification of the details of payment from the payment app used for the transaction. Thus, the analysis of the above-mentioned three notification is done by mapping the information of each notification with another notification. Based on the mapping, the method identifies that the amount mentioned in all the said three notification is common. Further, based on the mapping of amount, the method identifies the link in between the said three notification. The method may further analyse the notifications based on the time difference of receiving such notifications.

Next, at step [208] , the method comprises merging, by the Processing Unit [104] , the at least two identified linked notifications to generate a single notification. In continuation with the above-mentioned example, the method performs merging of the said three notifications to generate a single notification covering the relevant/common information of said three notification. For instance, the new single notification may include the amount details and the icon of all the applications used to perform this event/task. The method further comprises storing, by the Storage Unit [108] , the data associated with the plurality of notifications and the data associated with the merged notifications.

Next, at step [210] , the method comprises displaying, by the Display Unit [106] , the single notification to the user. The single notification is displayed to the user in an automatically generated view or in a customized view. In one embodiment, the text details may be displayed to the user on one side of the screen and icons/symbols on another side of the screen. In another embodiment, the text details and icons can be displayed to the user on any suitable place of the screen based on the user customization. In yet another embodiment, the user may select what all information user wants to see in the generated single notification. After displaying the single notification to the user, the method terminates at step [212] .

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary use case of the present disclosure, in accordance with exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure. FIG. 3 display merging of linked notifications to generate a single notification. For instance, the User orders food online through a food delivery application. Based on the activity of the user of ordering food online, the user receives the following notifications on the screen of the user equipment.

The user receives a first notification [302] in the form of a text message from the Food delivery application requesting the amount to be paid for the order. The message includes various details such as transaction id, amount, tag of the payment app to ease payment process.

The user receives a second notification [304] in the form of a text message from the Bank to inform the user about the transaction made for the order or to provide details of the amount deduction. The message includes transaction id, amount paid, name of Bank.

The user receives a third notification [306] from the application used for the payment for e.g., Google Pay. The notification includes transaction id, amount, tag of the payment app.

The user receives a fourth notification [308] in the form of a mail about the deduction of the amount. The notification includes transaction id, amount, name of Bank, name of application used for food order.

The Processing Unit [104] analyse these four notifications i.e., first notification [302] , second notification [304] , third notification [306] and the fourth notification [308] to identify the link in between the above-mentioned four notifications. The Processing Unit [104] identifies the link based on the common information in the said notifications such as amount and transaction id. Thus, utilising this information, the Processing Unit [104] merge the four linked notifications to generate a single notification covering common and relevant information such as relevant text [310] and one or more relevant icons [312] . The relevant text [310] may include the transaction amount which is common in all the linked notifications and one or more relevant icons [312] such as icon of messaging app, icon of payment app, icons of mailing app, icon of food delivery app to show the various applications used during the task or event of ordering food online.

Furthermore, the one or more aspect of the present disclosure relates to a user equipment for merging linked notifications. The user equipment includes the system [100] . The system [100] is configured to receive a plurality of notifications of the events associated with the activity of a user. Next, the system [100] is configured to analyse each of the plurality of notifications to identify the link in between at least two of the plurality of notifications. The link in between the at least two notifications is identified based on a successful mapping of one or more parameters. Thereafter, the system is configured to merge the at least two identified linked notifications to generate a single notification. Next, the system is configured to display the single notification to the user.

While considerable emphasis has been placed herein on the disclosed embodiments, it will be appreciated that many embodiments can be made and that many changes can be made to the embodiments without departing from the principles of the present disclosure. These and other changes in the embodiments of the present disclosure will be apparent to those skilled in the art, whereby it is to be understood that the foregoing descriptive matter to be implemented is illustrative and non-limiting.

Claims

A method of merging linked notifications, the method comprising:

- receiving, at a Transceiver Unit [102] , a plurality of notifications of the events associated with the activity of a user;

- analysing, by a Processing Unit [104] , each of the plurality of notifications to identify the link in between at least two of the plurality of notifications, wherein the link in between the at least two notification is identified based on a successful mapping of one or more parameters;

- merging, by the Processing Unit [104] , the at least two identified linked notifications to generate a single notification;

- displaying, by a Display Unit [106] , the single notification to the user.
The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the one or more parameters comprises text, number, content of notification, object of notification, icons present in the notification, symbol present in the notifications, tags, picture, identity number (such as transaction id) , time of notification, type of notification, category of notification, source of notification.
The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the method comprises storing, by a storage Unit [108] , at least one of a data associated with each of the plurality of notifications and a data required for generating the single notification.
The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the single notification is generated either automatically or based on the user preference.
The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the single notification is displayed to the user in one of an automatically generated view or in a customized view.
The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprises notifying, by the Processing Unit [104] , the user for the generated single notification through a combined notification alert.
A system [100] for merging linked notifications, the system comprises:

- a Transceiver Unit [102] , configured to receive a plurality of notifications of the events associated with the activity of a user;

- a Processing Unit [104] , wherein the Processing Unit [104] is configured to:

analyse, each of the plurality of notifications to identify the link in between at least two of the plurality of notifications, wherein the link in between the at least two notification is identified based on a successful mapping of one or more parameters, and

merge the at least two identified linked notifications to generate a single notification; and

- a Display Unit [106] , configured to display, the single notification to the user.
The system [100] as claimed in claim 7, wherein the one or more parameters comprises text, number, content of notification, object of notification, icons present in the notification, symbol present in the notifications, tags, picture, identity number (such as transaction id) , time of notification, type of notification, category of notification, source of notification.
The system [100] as claimed in claim 7 comprises a Storage Unit [108] , configured to store, at least one of a data associated with each of the plurality of notifications and a data required to generate the single notification.
The system [100] as claimed in claim 7, wherein the Processing Unit [104] is further configured to generate the single notification automatically or based on the user preference.
The system [100] as claimed in claim 7, wherein the Display Unit [106] display the single notification to the user in one of an automatically generated view or in a customized view.
The system [100] as claimed in claim 7, further comprises notifying, by the Processing Unit [104] , the user for the generated single notification through a combined notification alert.
A user equipment for merging linked notifications, the user equipment comprises:

a system [100] configured to:

- receive a plurality of notifications of the events associated with the activity of a user;

- analyse each of the plurality of notifications to identify the link in between at least two of the plurality of notifications, wherein the link in between the at least two notification is identified based on a successful mapping of one or more parameters;

- merge the at least two identified linked notifications to generate a single notification; and

- display the single notification to the user.
The user equipment as claimed in claim 13, wherein the one or more parameters comprises text, number, content of notification, object of notification, icons present in the notification, symbol present in the notifications, tags, picture, identity number (such as transaction id) , time of notification, type of notification, category of notification, source of notification.
The user equipment as claimed in claim 13, wherein the system [100] is further configured to store at least one of a data associated with each of the plurality of notifications and a data required to generate the single notification.
The user equipment as claimed in claim 13, wherein the system [100] is configured to generate the single notification automatically or based on the user preference.
The user equipment as claimed in claim 13, wherein the system [100] is configured to display the single notification to the user in one of an automatically generated view or in a customized view.
The user equipment as claimed in claim 13, wherein the system [100] is further configured to notify the user for the generated single notification through a combined notification alert.