WO2001076163A1

WO2001076163A1 - Improved electronic messaging service

Info

Publication number: WO2001076163A1
Application number: PCT/SG2001/000052
Authority: WO
Inventors: Dennis Choo Han Goh
Original assignee: Singh Soin, Balmik; Singh Bhatia, Dinesh
Priority date: 2000-04-05
Filing date: 2001-04-05
Publication date: 2001-10-11
Also published as: AUPQ671100A0

Abstract

A system to enable the user to transmit a message from one messaging platform to at least one recipient on a plurality of messaging platforms, wherein the user enters contact information for each at least one recipient; the system then analyses the contact information for each at least one recipient to determine which messaging platform is intended for each at least one recipient; the system then forwards the message to each the recipient on the respective intended messaging platform.

Description

IMPROVED ELECTRONIC MESSAGING SERVICE Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a system or method of messaging between multiple platforms through electronic means. In particular the system enables a user to communicate simultaneously from a single point or platform to various other messaging platforms that operate through electronic means. Background of the Invention

There exists a multitude of messaging platforms that operate through electronic means. Examples of "traditional" platforms are Telephone (voice), Telex and Fax. Recently introduced platforms include Email, SMS, ICQ, AOL

Messenger and MSN Messenger. Many new platforms are being introduced periodically.

The electronic means of transmission of messages include electrical signals over copper wire, light signals over optic fiber, radio frequency signals over the air, infrared signals over the air and microwave signals over the air. The electronic signals transmitted may be analog or digital in nature.

A message that is composed using various analog and digital media is coded and transmitted as analog or digital electronic signals following the various protocols that the various messaging platforms operate under. At the receiving end, the signals are decoded by various systems and the message is recomposed into various analog and digital media that the recipient can comprehend. The media, encoding, transmission, protocols and decoding systems or methods used are different and specific to each messaging platform. Each messaging platform has a different CODEC (code/decode) and has to follow specific protocols and the protocols of the various platforms are not interoperable.

A message may be in the form of text, static graphic, animated graphic, voice, audio or video, or any combination of the above.

Due to the non inter-operability of the various messaging platforms, various systems have been invented to allow sending messages across different platforms. For example, sending an email through a mobile phone using the SMS platform over the WAP network.

One of the common tools presently available over the Internet is that of messaging. Existing messaging solutions as noted above include email, ICQ, MSN messenger fax and voice. Most users, if not all, of the Internet would take advantage of at least one of these messaging solutions available, and in many cases each user will have accounts with multiple messaging solutions, so that they may communicate with their desired recipients. Similarly, mobile phone based data messaging is available over the WAP, and through SMS or short messaging system. SMS is a feature that allows users to receive or transmit short text messages using a wireless phone. Using SMS a short alpha-numeric message can be transmitted to a mobile phone which display the message on the screen of the mobile phone. In addition, new proprietary messaging platforms are being developed on handheld devices, interactive TV applications, and many other devices.

Existing messaging solutions currently allow a given message to be sent to one messaging platform at a time only although single cross-platform messaging is possible in some cases (eg SMS-based and MSN-Messenger based email messages). That is, whilst there exist services that aggregate these cross- platform messaging systems, say sending emails, faxes, SMS, ICQ from a particular internet website, they still require the user to access a separate function on the website to compose and send a message for each platform that he wishes to send the message through even though it is the same message. Or in the case where there are separate messaging gateways to different platforms (such as ICQ's email gateway or TPC's email to fax gateway), the user is still forced to send the message to different addresses for delivery, instead of one address which then handles the distribution

However since there is no common messaging platform that everyone uses, there are many occasions that a user will need to send the same message via different messaging platforms in order to reach his entire intended audience. Currently if a user wanted to send a particular message to an audience that reside on a multitude of electronic messaging platforms the user would have to compose that same message for each of the multiple platforms that the user's target audience resided in and send the message out individually on each platform. For example, if the user's intended audience for the same message comprised addressees that resided on different platform, for example the email, fax, ICQ and SMS (mobile phone) platforms then the user would have to access the four different functions on the website, compose the same message four times and sent it out four times in order to reach the entire audience. This is inconvenient, time consuming, frustrating and increases the chances for errors as the messaging process has to be repeated several times.

Services that allow messaging to the different messaging platforms from a website or wapsite are available currently but these services are offered as separate options/platforms which still require the user to compose and send the same message as many times as there are platforms that he would like to send the message through. For example ICQ, which allows their own proprietary instant messaging as well as emails, SMS and paging under four different interfaces.

There is therefore a need to provide a system or method which simplifies the process for the user who wishes to send messages to a number of recipients who may be on different messaging platforms. Object of the Invention An object of the present invention is to provide a method or system whereby the user is able to send the same message to a number of recipients who are not necessarily on the same messaging platform.

Ideally the present invention will provide a system that enables a user to send a given message from a single point or platform to one or more recipients who are on two or more different messaging platforms, thereby overcoming the problem of the user having to compose the same message and sending the same message as many times as there are messaging platforms over which the user wishes to send that message, or having to transmit the message separately for each recipient. Summary of the Invention

With the above object in mind the present invention provides in a first aspect a system to enable a user to transmit a message from one messaging platform to at least one recipient on a plurality of messaging platforms, wherein said user enters contact information for each said at least one recipient; said system then analyses said contact information for each said at least one recipient to determine which messaging platform is intended for each said at least one recipient; said system then forwards the message to each said recipient on the respective intended messaging platforms. Conveniently, the system is able to send a message to a single recipient having accounts on a number of different messaging platforms, and also send messages to multiple recipients, each recipient having one or more accounts on various messaging platforms. In the preferred embodiment said system would format each said message to meet requirements of the respective intended messaging platform. Ideally, both the header and body of one message would be formatted as necessary.

Preferably, the system will compare said contact information with a set of predefined formats to determine the intended platform. Further, the system will ideally sort the contact information for each recipient so that each recipient is sorted into common messaging platforms.

In entering the contact information the user may select addresses from a list or database of addresses stored on the system and/or alternatively manually enter a new address not currently stored on the system. Conveniently, the user may access the system via a mobile phone or any other communications or internet-enabled device over a WAP or other suitable network. Brief Description of the Figures

The present invention will be further described with reference to the accompanying drawings. It will be appreciated by the person skilled in the art that other embodiments of the present invention are possible, and therefore the particularity of the accompanying drawings and description is not to be understood as superceding the generality of the preceding description of the invention. Figure 1 shows a transmission network.

Figure 2 shows a flow diagram of how the message to be sent is forwarded to the various platforms.

Figure 3 shows an overall messaging system which may utilize the present invention. Detailed description

The messaging system of the present invention, amongst other features, allows the user to send a message simultaneously to more than one messaging platform from a single point. The user composes a message and enters in the addressee list any combination of user names, email addresses, ICQ numbers, voice (phone number), SMS numbers (mobile phone numbers), fax numbers and other messaging platform address formats or unique identifiers and the message is sent simultaneously to all the addressees in the addressee list via their respective messaging platforms. The address list function, in the present system, for the first time allows the user to store frequently used addresses from various platforms.

A Distribution List function of commonly used group of addressees further enhances the convenience of the application. The Distribution List function allows multiple messaging platform addresses to co-exist on the same addressee list such that sending a common message to the multi-platform addressees in the Distribution List is as easy as selecting the Distribution List, composing the message and sending it, whereby the system automatically directs the message to all the addressees via their respective messaging platform. Additionally, the recipient of the message is able to choose that a message that is destined for one or more platforms is redirected to another platform of their choice, or that a message that has no platform specified at all or a identifier specifically for this purpose, is redirected to the platform(s) and addresses of their choice.

The user can elect the appropriate hardware device to access the subject system, which may be an appropriately configured personal computer, mobile phone, personal digital assistant, set-top box, etc.

As an example, for a person using a mobile phone over the WAP network, it is first necessary for the user to access their provider.

To access the provider 36 from the mobile phone 31 , the user makes a PPP (point-to-point protocol) data call to an RAS (remote access server 32), located either at an ISP (internet service provider 33) or at the Celco (cellular company). From there, a connection is made to a WAP (wireless application protocol) gateway 34 located on the internet 35, using UDP (universal datagram packet) over IP (internet protocol). The connection to the gateway may also be made to the gateways between the RAS and ISP as shown in Figure 1. The WAP gateway then makes a TCP (transmission control protocol) over IP connection to a web server, in this case the provider's 36 web server, and makes a HTTP (hyper text transfer protocol) request for the URL (uniform resource locator). The web server then sends back some header information, and the WML (wireless markup language) text. This is received by the WAP gateway, which closes the TCP/IP connection, converts the WML into binarised WMLC (wireless markup language compiled), and sends it via UDP/IP back to the mobile device 31 , which then renders it for the user. In an example, the page requested could be a WML deck containing a form containing the neccessary fields to submit a message, being a single To field, a subject field, a Message field and is such a feature is available, the ability to select addresses or attach data. The user can then fill in the fields as required and submit the page (via a link or button), which causes a new URL request to be formed on the phone 31 and sent over UDP to the gateway, which makes the new request to the web server (where any information in the fields would be processed), and the process continues until the data call is ended, either by the user or by other interference.

Referring now to Figure 3, there can be seen a messaging system which utilizes the present invention.

In a basic system, the messages or memos 13, may have three main components, namely new memos 14 which have just been received from a third party, old memos 15, which have been retained by the recipient following reading of the memo, or the creation or composing 16 of new messages to be sent to a third party.

When a recipient wishes to view a new message, they would select the new memo 14 function. Upon selection, the system retrieves a list of unread memos from the database 17, and then displays this list to the viewer 19. The viewer is able to scroll down this list 19 and select 20 the message to be read. Alternatively, the user may elect to return to the main menu 21. Upon selection 20 of an unread message, the system will retrieve and display the full message for viewing by the user 23. At the same time, the system will ideally mark or indicate that this message has been read.

Following viewing of the message, the user then has three options, the message may be closed and retained for later viewing 24, and the user returns to the list of unread messages 19. Alternatively, the user may elect to delete or erase 25 the current message, in which case the message is removed from the database 29 and the user again is returned to the list of unread messages 19. A final alternative, is that the user may elect to reply 26 to the newly read message.

If at any time the user elects to review old messages, they may do so by selecting the old memos 15 function. This function emulates that of the new memos 14 function, except that there is no need for the system to mark newly read messages as having been read.

If a user wishes to send a message to a third party, they will need to select the compose 16 function. Selecting the compose 16 function presents the user with a template 22 which the user will need to complete. The template may include fields such as "To" to designate who the message is to be sent to, "Subject" to indicate the subject of the message, and "Message" to indicate the message to be sent. Obviously, it may not be necessary to complete the "Subject" field, however the "To" field is essential in order for the message to be delivered to the desired recipient. Had the user been viewing a recently received message, and elected to reply 26 to that message, then the template 22 would ideally be preset with the "To" and "Subject" fields already completed, such that the user would then need only complete the "Message" field.

Upon completion of the template 22, such that the message is now complete, the user would then select the send 28 function which would refer the message to the sending engine 30 so that it may be forwarded to the desired recipient.

In many instances, the user may elect to send the same message to a number of different recipients. In this case, the "To" field in the template 22 would be completed with the list of different recipients. Previously, it has only been possible to send the same message to recipients in a common messaging protocol. However, the present invention enables the user to select multiple recipients on different messaging platforms.

Referring now to Figure 2, when using the preferred system, and composing 16 a message to be sent to a number of different recipients on varying messaging platforms, the user may type in the contact details for each recipient in the "TO" field on the template 22. These contact details may include email addresses, ICQ numbers, SMS numbers, address lists (which comprises a list of user addresses on any of the messaging platforms) separated either by commas, spaces or other delimiters as determined by the system or user addresses on other messaging platforms that the user wishes to send the memo to into the TO field,. The user then fills in the SUBJECT and BODY fields, attaches any files in relevant formats, e.g. wireless Bitmap (WBMP) and hits SEND 28. The text information is sent from the device via whatever protocols that are employed by the device (e.g. WAP on WAP phones, HTTP on personal computers or other internet devices, etc) through an internet connection (wireline or wireless) to the server on which the subject system is implemented. The system is deployed as a software engine on the system server that processes the information received from the user.

Firstly, the system splits the "TO" field up into a list of each address type. Then the system works out what type of address it is by applying a ruleset to it, for instance an email has the format ^*@^*.*, where the *'s represent one or more alphanumeric characters, or by a marking system, for instance f.92348263 can mean "the fax number 92348263". The ruleset can also be defined in terms of natural language processing, so as to be able to understand that 'fax to 65976383' or 'send 65976383 this fax' indicates that the message is to be faxed to that number. Alternatively, the user may have predefined the address to be one belonging to a particular messaging platform. Either the sender or any of the recipients may also set preference on the server that messages to a certain platform or address be redirected to one or more other platfomrs or addresses, or that an address that is not marked as destined for any platform or marked especially for this purpose can be redirected to one or more platforms which have been predefined. It proceeds to "act" upon each entry in the "TO" field sequentially until the entire to list has been processed. The system will then attempt to convert any non text data in the message to the appropriate type e.g. a picture would become WBMP for WAP, postscript format for fax, JPEG for email, or the smart picture messaging protocol format for SMS. If the address is an email 4, it makes an internet connection to the local email server (any standard mail transfer agent that supports SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) and sends it the data, with the recipient being the "TO" address, the sender being the user's email address, the subject field being the SUBJECT, and the body of the email being the BODY, possibly prefixed and/or suffixed with additional data, for example an advertisement. The email is then sent to the addressee by the email server via the internet in the format of SMTP, which is an accepted internet standard with any attachments included, and so does not need to be described in depth here. If the address is a SMS 5, the system first concatenates the subject and body fields, and then truncates it to around 120 characters, (as SMS has a limit of 160). The system may then add the email address of the user at the front, and perhaps an advertisement or additional data as well. The system then opens an internet connection to an SMS server 9 which sends the SMS via a connected SMSC in a mobile phone network, with the message being the concatenated string, and the recipient being the number from the "TO" field. There are a variety of SMS server solutions available in the market but as individual SMS server software packages offer slightly different interfaces, a single method cannot be described here, since it depends upon which package is used as to how it is formatted. To provide an example, some SMS servers operating using a system similar to SMTP, where the from address is the SMS number you wish to forge as the sender (if the server supports this), the TO address is the SMS number you wish to send the SMS to, and the data is the body of the SMS. If the address is a fax 7, an internet connection is opened to the fax server

10, which is given a preformatted text page with the FROM being the email address of the user, the subject being prefixed with SUBJECT, and the body being the body of the message. The fax server then dials the number given in the TO field, and faxes the page using common fax technology via the telephone network. Again, as there are many fax gateway packages, no one single interface system can be described, but to give an example, a common method for operation of fax gateways is using an SMTP system, where the TO address is the "email address" of the fax server, the subject line contains the fax number, and the body contains the data to be sent in the fax, Including any converted attachments.

If the address is a phone number (without an SMS identifier), the message is delivered to a voice gateway machine. This machine then proceeds to make a connection over the telephone network to the phone number, and upon the other end being answered, the voice server synthesizes speech from the text message using text-to-voice translation and voice synthesis technology. Again, the specific method of data transfer to the voice gateway machine, the method of text-to-voice translation and the voice synthesis technique cannot be specified here as available voice gateways use different protocols for the transfer of the text data and text-to-voice translation methods. But as an example a connection may be made to a certain port on the voice gateway machine, and then following a protocol the destination number, the message and any extra options are communicated to the machine and the machine translates the data to speech via an engine with text-to-voice translators and voice synthesis technology and the resultant voice message is transmitted to the addressee via a normal telephone dial-up.

If the address is an ICQ number 6, the system checks whether the user has registered his or her ICQ number and password with the provider. If so, the system logs on to the ICQ network 7 via the internet as that user, using an ICQ client such as mlCQ, or any other one which supports a command line interface or API (Application Programming Interface) to send messages and delivers the message.

Otherwise, a connection is opened to the mail server and the data is sent, with the recipient being the ICQ number in the TO field, suffixed by a "@pager.icq.com" (ie 10097539@pager.icq.com - ICQ's email gateway), the sender being the user's email address, the subject being the SUBJECT field, and the body being the BODY, perhaps prefixed or suffixed by an advertisement.

If the address is another instant messenger client, then the engine will follow the protocols for the client. This cannot be detailed in this document at this time as an open standard for instant messenger clients is still being negotiated.

However the process will run along the lines of contacting a server and sending the required data in the required format.

If the address is an address list, the database is queried for that users address book, the list of addressees is looked up in the user's address book, expanded, and then each address is sorted separately by the above rules. For instance, if the address list is called Friends, the "TO" list is stored in the variable

$to, and Friends consists of Rob, John and Pat...

$to contains "Simon, Friends, Paul".

Database is queried on who is in Friends. Friends - (Rob, John, Pat) now $to contains "Simon, Rob, John, Pat, Paul" and each address is treated separately by the above rules.

The specifications can also be expanded to include future anticipated and unanticipated messaging systems or other message/mail/voice protocols, as long as a unique identifier can be associated with them (like an email address, ICQ number or phone number is a unique identifier for each system) or a tag can be attached to them (like c.672384782 for faxes or i.782342 for ICQ numbers) to cause them to be unique. Alternatively, the user may prespecify the relevant messaging platform for the particular address. An appropriate network connected messaging server that operates in the respective messaging platforms' protocols to send the messages must be connected to the initiating server over a network.

It will be understood that the system of sending a message from a single point to multiple messaging platforms can be extended to future messaging platforms that may emerge using the same method of implementation as detailed below, so long as a unique identifier is used to differentiate each messaging platform (like an email address, ICQ number or phone number is a unique identifier for each system) or the user predefines the relevant messaging platform for each address. The method entails the following: 1. The system server intelligently identifies the various platforms that the addressees reside on (based on rulesets or user definition),

2. The system server recomposes the message (including ancillary information like sender name, subject, date, etc) into a format suitable for the respective identified platforms from step (1 ), including attempting conversion of any data attachments, by the images, sound, or any other data or format,

3. The system server transfers the message to the relevant messaging server (email to email server, fax to fax server and so on) which formats the message into data in the relevant protocol of that messaging platform,

4. The respective messaging servers send out the data using the protocol and transmission channel appropriate to the platform over which it is sent e.g.

Emails are sent in SMTP over the internet while Faxes are sent via fax protocol over normal telephone lines and so on.

The present invention is unique in that it enables a user of a messaging system to send messages to multiple recipients on various messaging platforms. There is not presently available a system which does enable a message from one platform to be automatically sent to multiple different messaging platforms

Claims

THE CLAIMS DEFINING THE INVENTION ARE AS FOLLOWS:

1. A system to enable the user to transmit a message from one messaging platform to at least one recipient on a plurality of messaging platforms, wherein said user enters contact information for each said at least one recipient; said system then analyses said contact information for each said at least one recipient to determine which messaging platform is intended for each said at least one recipient; said system then forwards the message to each said recipient on the respective intended messaging platform.

2. A system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said at least one recipient may be a list of recipients with their respective contact information.

3. A system as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein said contact information is entered in a predefined format to assist in the analysis of the contact information to thereby determine the appropriate messaging platform.

4. A system as claimed in claim 3, wherein the contact information includes an identifier to distinguish each messaging platform.

5. A system as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the message is converted into a format suitable for the intended messaging platform.

6. A system as claimed in any preceding claim wherein a message may further include attachments.

7. A system as claimed in any preceding claim wherein an advertisement or additional matter is added to the message.

8. A system as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the system connects to the intended messaging platform to enable the message to be forwarded.

9. A system as claimed in any preceding claim wherein a single message is transmitted.

10. A system as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said contact information for each said at least one recipient is entered into a single field.

11. A system as herein before described with reference to the accompanying figures.

DATED this 4th day of April 2001

DENNIS CHOP HAN GOH. BALMIK SINGH SPIN AND DINESH SINGH BHATIA s/o AMARJEET SINGH

WATERMARK PATENT & TRADEMARK ATTORNEYS 4TH FLOOR "DURACK CENTRE" 263 ADELAIDE TERRACE PERTH WA 6000