WO2002032096A1 - Proxy-client multiplatform messaging enabler system - Google Patents

Proxy-client multiplatform messaging enabler system Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2002032096A1
WO2002032096A1 PCT/SG2001/000204 SG0100204W WO0232096A1 WO 2002032096 A1 WO2002032096 A1 WO 2002032096A1 SG 0100204 W SG0100204 W SG 0100204W WO 0232096 A1 WO0232096 A1 WO 0232096A1
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WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
message
messaging
messaging platform
platform
host
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/SG2001/000204
Other languages
French (fr)
Inventor
Dennis Cho Han Goh
Balmik Singh Soin
Dinesh Singh Bhatia
Original Assignee
Dennis Cho Han Goh
Balmik Singh Soin
Dinesh Singh Bhatia
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Dennis Cho Han Goh, Balmik Singh Soin, Dinesh Singh Bhatia filed Critical Dennis Cho Han Goh
Priority to AU2001294504A priority Critical patent/AU2001294504A1/en
Publication of WO2002032096A1 publication Critical patent/WO2002032096A1/en

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Classifications

    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04LTRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L51/00User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
    • H04L51/06Message adaptation to terminal or network requirements
    • H04L51/066Format adaptation, e.g. format conversion or compression
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04MTELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M3/00Automatic or semi-automatic exchanges
    • H04M3/42Systems providing special services or facilities to subscribers
    • H04M3/50Centralised arrangements for answering calls; Centralised arrangements for recording messages for absent or busy subscribers ; Centralised arrangements for recording messages
    • H04M3/53Centralised arrangements for recording incoming messages, i.e. mailbox systems
    • H04M3/5307Centralised arrangements for recording incoming messages, i.e. mailbox systems for recording messages comprising any combination of audio and non-audio components
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04MTELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M2201/00Electronic components, circuits, software, systems or apparatus used in telephone systems
    • H04M2201/60Medium conversion
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04MTELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M2203/00Aspects of automatic or semi-automatic exchanges
    • H04M2203/45Aspects of automatic or semi-automatic exchanges related to voicemail messaging
    • H04M2203/4509Unified messaging with single point of access to voicemail and other mail or messaging systems

Definitions

  • the designated recipient messaging client then feeds the contact information into a relevant multiplatform messaging system, for example, a system as disclosed in the present applicant's Provisional Application No. PQ6711 , which may or may not be on the same hardware.
  • the relevant multiplatform messaging system then analyses the contact information for each intended recipient of the message to determine which messaging platform is intended for each intended recipient.
  • the multiplatform messaging system then performs its processes to forward the message to the intended recipients on the respective intended messaging platforms.
  • Protocol and sends it the data, with the sender being the user's email address.
  • the email address of the sender may be checked against a database of subscribers and if a match is found in the "email address" field of a subscriber's record, the subscriber's username or any other relevant data may be extracted from the database and inserted in place of the original email address as the "Sender".
  • the "Recipient list” is identified by the first string of data in the text message field that resembles the syntax of the multiple addresses by applying rulesets for detection.

Abstract

A method to enable a user to transmit a message from a base 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 and transmits the message to a host messaging platform; the host messaging platform then extracts and analyses the contact information for each at least one recipient to determine which messaging platform is intended for each at least one recipient; the host messaging platform then forwards the message to each recipient on the respective intended messaging platform(s).

Description

PROXY-CLIENT MULTIPLATFORM MESSAGING ENABLER SYSTEM
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a system or method of enabling messaging between multiple platforms through electronic means. In particular the system enables a user to communicate indirectly from a local point 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, 2-way pagers, ICQ, AOL Messenger and MSN Messenger, web based messaging, and set-top box messaging. Many new platforms are being introduced periodically.
Most users, if not all, of the web 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.
Since there is no common messaging platform that everyone uses, there are many occasions when a user will need to send the same message via different messaging platforms in order to reach the user's entire intended audience. Generally, if a user wanted to send a particular message to an audience that resided on a plurality 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 platforms, for example, email, fax, ICQ and SMS (mobile phone) platforms then the user would have to access the four different functions on the website, or use separate applications or devices, compose the same message four times and send it out four times (once for each platform) 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. In view of this, the present applicants have disclosed in Australian Provisional Patent Application No. PQ6711 , completed as PCT/SG01/00052, a system which enabled a user to transmit a message from one messaging platform to one or more recipients on a plurality of messaging platforms. This system read the contact information input by the user, and determined which messaging platform was intended for each recipient. The system then forwarded this message to the respective recipients on the respective messaging platforms.
The applicant's prior system effectively enables a user to log on to the system and send a single message to multiple users on multiple messaging platforms. However, if the user has not logged on to the system, they will be unable to send messages to multiple recipients. That is, unless a user logs on to the multiple messaging platform, they will be faced with the necessity to log on to the various messaging platforms if they wish to send messages to users on different platforms. In other words, if a user was not logged on to the multiplatform messaging system, they would be precluded from sending messages automatically to a plurality of platforms.
There is, therefore, a need to provide a system or method which enables a user to send messages to a number of recipients on different messaging platforms, regardless of the messaging platform or system the user is currently logged on to or wishes to log on to.
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, regardless of the platform or system upon which the user is logged on to.
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. Further, it will not be necessary for the user to log on to a dedicated system, but rather their present platform messaging system may be used, be it email, SMS, pager, fax, voice, instant messenger, web, set-top box, etc..
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION With the above object in mind, the present invention provides in a first aspect a method to enable a user to transmit a message from a base messaging platform to at least one recipient on a plurality of messaging platforms, wherein said user enters the message, and contact information for each said at least one recipient and transmits said message and contact information to a host messaging platform; said host messaging platform then analyses said message and contact information and extracts message components including 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 host messaging platform then forwards the message to each said recipient on the respective intended messaging platforms.
Ideally, the process would be transparent to the user in that the user would not be aware that the email was being forwarded initially to a host messaging platform for processing and forwarding. Rather the user would consider that the message was transmitted firstly to the intended recipients. In some applications it may be desirable to configure the user's default messaging system to always send messages via the host messaging platform. In this way, the user need not be aware of the sending of messages to an intermediary station.
Conveniently, the host messaging platform 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 the host messaging platform 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 host messaging platform will compare the contact information with a set of predefined formats to determine the intended platform. Further, the host messaging platform 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 host messaging platform and/or alternatively enter a new address not currently stored on the host messaging platform.
In a further aspect the present invention provides a method to enable a user to transmit a message from a base messaging platform to a multiplatform messaging system, wherein said multiplatform messaging system is capable of forwarding a message to multiple recipients on multiple messaging platforms; wherein said user enters message and contact information for at least one recipient and transmits said message and contact information to a host messaging platform; said host messaging platform then transforms said message and contact information into a format suitable for said multiplatform messaging system and forwards the transformed message to the multiplatform messaging system.
In a further aspect the present invention provides a system to enable a user to send a message from a base messaging platform to a plurality of recipients, wherein said recipients reside on a plurality of intended messaging platforms, and said user enters contact information for each said recipient; and wherein: said message is forwarded to a host messaging platform; said host messaging platform extracts and analyses said contact information for each said recipient to determine which messaging platform is intended for each said recipient; and said host messaging platform forwards said message to each said recipient on respective intended messaging platforms.
With regard to the system if a person is to receive a message on two different platforms this should be considered as two recipients. Similarly, if a message is to be sent to one person on two different platforms, and also to a second person on three different platforms, then this should be considered as five recipients. That is a recipient refers to a person on a platform 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 s not to be understood as superseding the generality of the preceding description of the invention.
Figure 1 shows a possible implementation of the overall system of the present invention.
Figures 2a and 2b show possible options which may be available for a user to input the intended recipients.
Figures 3 and 4 show samples of generated message formats. DETAILED DESCRIPTION
The messaging system of the present invention, amongst other features, allows the user to effectively send a message simultaneously to more than one messaging platform from the user's present messaging platform. The user logs on to a message platform, composes a message and enters in the appropriate field 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. As can be seen from Figures 2a and 2b, these addresses may be entered into the subject field or, alternatively, in the message field prior to, or after, the text message to be sent. It is noted in the examples of Figures 2a and 2b that the message is, in fact, initially forwarded to a host messaging platform. Once the message is received by the host messaging platform, the recipient details are extracted and the message is sent simultaneously to all the addressees in the addressee list via their respective messaging platforms.
Obviously, depending on the embodiment which is implemented, it may be necessary to standardise the location or field in which the user inputs the intended recipients. Alternatively, an additional field may be entered into which the intended recipients are added. As a further alternative, the messaging system may be configured such that the message will automatically be forwarded to the host messaging platform, in which case the "To" field may then be used by the recipient to input the intended recipients. In this manner, the present system would be totally transparent to the actual user.
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 multiplatform addressees in the Distribution List is as easy as selecting the Distribution List, composing the message and sending it, whereby the system forwards a message to the host messaging platform, extracts the Distribution List and automatically directs the message to all the addressees via their respective messaging platform.
The present system is advantageous in that the user need not purchase additional hardware, or software, or access a dedicated system. Rather, the user is able to send messages to multiple recipients on multiple messaging platforms, from their preferred messaging platform. When using the preferred system, and composing 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 appropriate field on the message template. These contact details may include email addresses, ICQ numbers, SMS numbers, voice telephone numbers, fax numbers, pager 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 message to into the appropriate field, separated either by commas, spaces or other delimiters. The user then completes the remaining fields and sends the message.
Referring to Figure 1 , it can be seen that once the user's message has been composed and forwarded, the overall process is generally common regardless of the user's preferred messaging platform. If the user has elected to send messages via their email system, then once the message has been composed by the user and forwarded, the email is sent by the SMTP server of the user's system via the Internet to the SMTP server of the host or multiple platform messaging system. That is, the user's message with the contact information of the intended recipient is sent to a designated address on the same messaging platform as that of the user. For example, an email to an email account, ICQ to an ICQ account etc. The designated recipient messaging client then feeds the contact information into a relevant multiplatform messaging system, for example, a system as disclosed in the present applicant's Provisional Application No. PQ6711 , which may or may not be on the same hardware. The relevant multiplatform messaging system then analyses the contact information for each intended recipient of the message to determine which messaging platform is intended for each intended recipient. The multiplatform messaging system then performs its processes to forward the message to the intended recipients on the respective intended messaging platforms.
Accordingly, the user's preferred messaging platform may be utilised to allow the user to forward a single message to a plurality of recipients on varying messaging platforms. The user composes a message for the various recipients, and includes the respective addresses for each intended recipient in an appropriate field, and then forwards this message to a designated address on that messaging platform. This message is then received and processed by the relevant host messaging gateway which may have an integrated multiplatform messaging system or is connected to an external multiplatform messaging system, which forwards the message to the intended recipients on their respective messaging platform.
The present system enables a user to transmit a message from any one messaging platform to at least one target recipient on a plurality of messaging platforms. Initially, the user enters contact information, which may include addresses on any messaging platform, for each of the target recipient(s), and preferably ends the list by entering an indicator which may be any character(s). The character(s) chosen should not be that which may be commonly used in a message to avoid errors. The intended message may be conveniently entered before or after the contact information.
Addresses with unique characteristics that distinguish them from other platform addresses may be entered as they are. Other platform addresses that may be ambiguous are entered with a prefix that is a platform identifier (eg fax! for Fax, sms! for SMS, icq! for ICQ, etc.) Prefixes need not be exactly these acronyms as long as each platform has a unique identifier. The Addresses are entered with a suitable delimiter between them which may be a space, comma, etc.
For multiplatform messaging systems that have added features like public and private address books and mailing lists, or simplified addressing systems, such as that disclosed in the present applicant's co-pending Australian Provisional Patent Application No. PQ6711 , the special method of entering the multiple messaging platform addresses may be used, for example, faxljohn, sms?dave, etc.
The message with contact information is then sent to a designated address on the same messaging platform as the sending messaging platform. For example, if a user is using an email client to send his message, the user will send the message to a designated email address like say memo@iteru.net or if the user is using an SMS client he would send the SMS to a designated mobile phone number such as 6598248378, etc. The designated addresses that receive the message(s) are assigned to the respective messaging clients that reside on the respective host messaging gateways. The System is deployed as a software engine on the respective messaging servers. The System on each respective messaging server is interfaced with the messaging client and extracts the content of the message received which may contain information such as the sender's address, subject target recipient addresses and the message body. Some messaging platforms such as SMS may not have data pertaining to the "Subject" field or "Attachment" field.
The System searches for the first string of data in the "Subject" or "Message" fields that resembles the syntax of the multiple addresses and recognises it as the start of the contact list. The end of the contact list is recognised by the first string of data that does not resemble the syntax of the multiple addresses or by an indicator character(s). In the example given, the end indicator character chosen is "#" but any character or characters may be used. For reduction of possible errors caused by similar characters that may be used by the sender at the start or end of a message, a more unique start and end indicator such as "#start" and "#end" may be used at the expense of a slight increase in user inconvenience. The System then splits up the contact list, the message body, message subject (if present) and the sender's address into separate data fields. The sender's messaging platform and hence address type is identified by which designated messaging client it was sent to. Depending on the multiplatform messaging system that is being used in conjunction with the subject System of the present invention, the data may be further processed to be compatible with it.
In some cases, the System of the present invention will be required to further split the contact list into several more fields with each field containing addresses from the same messaging platform. The addresses of each messaging platform are identified by applying a ruleset to it. For example, email addresses are recognised by the format *@*.* where "*" represents one or more alphanumeric characters. Other platform addresses are identified by their unique address syntax or by the platform identifier prefix. If platform identifiers are used they are first removed by the System before entering into the respective platform address fields. The separate address fields thus assembled are then sent to the respective address fields of the system together with the message body, message subject (if present) and the sender's address.
The relevant multiplatform messaging system then performs its processes to send the message to the target recipient(s) on the respective intended messaging platforms.
It is not necessary that the addressing be standardised, just more efficient. A system may be written such that the recipient list may appear in more than one field, its just the checks will take longer and slow down the system. It is preferred that the addressing be standardised for the implemented embodiment so as to provide a more efficient system. That is, it is preferred for the user to always input the addresses of the intended recipients in the same field, so that the system may be able to extract the addresses with less processing involved. If necessary a system could be implemented such that the recipient list may appear in more than one field, although additional checks would be required which may slow the system down slightly. As previously indicated, these addresses may be inputted into the subject or body fields of the message. Alternatively, during implementation of the system, the user's preferred messaging platform may be configured to automatically forward any messages via the designated address to the multiplatform messaging system. In this case, an additional field may be added to the user's messaging system, in which the user inputs the addresses of the intended recipients. Alternatively, the "To" field may be used for the recipient to enter the addresses of the intended recipients. In this scenario, even though the intended recipients are listed in the "To" field, the message is still forwarded via the multiplatform messaging system.
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 multiplatform messaging system is implemented.
Firstly, the system splits up the appropriate field, which contains the intended recipients, 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 form * _)*.*, where the "*"s represent one or more alphanumeric characters, or by a marking system, for instance f.92348263 can mean "the fax number 92348263". Alternatively, the user may have predefined the address to be one belonging to a particular messaging platform. It proceeds to "act" upon each entry in the appropriate address field sequentially until the entire to list has been processed.
If the address is an email, it makes a 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 sender being the user's email address.
The body of the message may possibly be 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, and so does not need to be described in depth here.
If the address is a SMS, 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 a connection to an SMS server which sends the SMS via a connected SMSC in a mobile phone network, with the message being the concatenated string. There is 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, a connection is opened to the fax server, 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, 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.
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, 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 as that user, using an ICQ client such as mlCQ, or any other one which supports a command line 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, suffixed by a "@pager.icq.com" (ie 10097538@pager.icq.com - ICQ's email gateway), and the sender being the user's email address. 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 user's 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 specification 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 Internet connected messaging server that operates in the respective messaging platforms' protocols to send the messages must be connected to the Internet. More particularly, and with reference to Figure 1 , a base messaging platform (or user preferred platform) is used to transmit a message, following a pre-determined format, to a host messaging gateway compatible with the base messaging platform, ie, if the base platform is email, the message is sent to a host email gateway. Alternatively, if the base platform is SMS, then the message is sent to a host SMS gateway etc. The software solutions for each host messaging gateway that receives the respective type of platform messages are readily available solutions in the marketplace, eg Qmail for email, Wavecom for SMS, Hylafax for fax etc. The protocol and transmission method used between the base messaging platform and the host messaging gateway are those that are generally used for the respective messaging platforms. The host messaging gateways may be separate systems or integrated with the system of the present invention and/or a central multiplatform message processing system, that is the host messaging gateway may be outside on the same hardware. The respective host messaging gateways upon receipt of a message from a base messaging platform sends the message into the system of the present invention, preferably implemented as a software engine that processes the message into a format that the central multiplatform message processing System requires. The System of the present invention may be integrated or implemented in separate hardware devices linked to the central multiplatform message processing system by a variety of ways including, but not restricted to, Internet protocol, serial connection or other transport protocol.
The System of the present invention firstly analyses and splits up the data received from the respective host messaging gateways into various components or fields according to a ruleset or by employing fuzzy logic to identify and extract the contents of each message component. Irrelevant fields or fields not required by the central multiplatform message processing system may be ignored. The components of a message are typically "Sender", "Recipient List", "Subject", "Message", Attachments" and "Time & Date". The specific rulesets or fuzzy logic employed may depend on the host messaging gateways used for the solution. Examples of email and SMS message formats generated by Qmail and Wavecom respectively can be seen on Figures 3 & 4. Essentially, the rulesets rely on certain identifiers or sequence of data strings used by the various software in the host messaging gateways to ascertain the contents of each message component.
For example on the Qmail email software example shown in Figure 3, the "Date & Time" component is identified by the data that follows the text string "Date:" in the email header, the "Sender" is identified by the. email address that follows the text string "From:" in the email message header - in the example in Figure 3 the "Sender" is john@iteru.net. An added ruleset that identifies a valid email address by matching syntax XX@XX.XX may be used for improved accuracy of detection. Conveniently, the email address of the sender may be checked against a database of subscribers and if a match is found in the "email address" field of a subscriber's record, the subscriber's username or any other relevant data may be extracted from the database and inserted in place of the original email address as the "Sender". The "Recipient list" is identified by the first string of data in the text message field that resembles the syntax of the multiple addresses by applying rulesets for detection. For example, email addresses are detected by the syntax XX@XX.XX while detection of other ambiguous addresses may be achieved by adding a unique platform identifier as a prefix or suffix for each messaging platform address type - the example used here is "sms!" for SMS, "fax!" for Fax, "icq!" for ICQ etc. In the example of Figure 3 the recipient list is shown at item 1. Conveniently, the detection of the "Recipient list" may be made easier or more accurate by adding a special character or string of characters to denote the start and/or end of the recipient list. For example, the special character used may be "#" or "#start" and "#end". The "Message" component, shown as item 2, is the portion of text in the message field that does not fit the syntax of the recipient list. Conveniently, the "Recipient list" may appear in any part of the email message field (ie it does not matter if it was before or after message text) or email subject field. The "Attachment" component, if any, is detected by the text string "Content-Type:TTT" that precedes the file type (shown as item 3), file name 4 and attachment file 5, where "TTT" is anything other than "text/plain". The information for each attachment like filename, file-type and file is found within boundaries, in this example denoted by "~ ==================--------:----- 14415340== " For example on the Wavecom SMS server example shown in Figure 4, the "Sender" 6 is identified by the text string matching the syntax "+XXX" where the "X's" represent the mobile phone number of the Sender. Conveniently, the mobile phone number may be checked against a database of subscribers and if a match is found in the "mobile phone number" field of a subscriber's record, the subscriber's name or email address or any other relevant data may be extracted from the database and inserted in place of the original mobile phone number as the "Sender", for example +6512345678 as the "Sender" component of the message may be replaced by John or john@email.com depending on the implementation chosen. The "Date & Time" is identified by the 3rd data field in the data generated by Wavecom which matches the syntax "YY/MM/DD.hh:mm:ss". The "Recipient list" 7 and "Message" 8 components are identified by applying the same methods as that elaborated in the Qmail example above.
For base messaging platforms that are non digital in nature such as Fax and Voice, an intermediate step is required to firstly convert the analog message form into digital form. Fax messages received by the host messaging gateway will firstly be fed through any of the market available optical character recognition software which will generate a text code message. The format of the Fax can be tailored for easy detection of the message components by having identifying component names preceding the components, eg "Date:" for Date & Time, "From:" for Sender, "To:" for Recipient list, "Subject" for Subject and "Message" for Message components. For Voice messages, any market available voice-to- text solutions may be used to convert the voice messages into text code. The detection of the various message components from the resultant text document generated by the voice-to-text solution will be similar to that of the fax document. Any present or future base messaging platforms may also be configured in the manner similar to that disclosed above to enable the same application.
The components of the message detected above are then transmitted to the central processing system, possibly directly (if the software resides on the same machine), or through a remote connection (be it IP, serial, wireless, or any other transport protocol). In a particular implementation, the transmission could be through delimited fields, that is control characters separating predefined fields. An example would be a transmission of an email using serial - ascii code 1 (symbolised as [1]) represents the start of the packet, ascii code 2 (symbolised as [2]) represents the end of the packet, and ascii code 4 (symbolised as [4]) represents a delimiter. The fields are predefined in this order - From, To, Subject, Message, Attachment in uuencode format to match the message components stripped out from the message. Therefore the message components may be assembled in the following manner:
[1]60126526724[4]joe@email.com[4]sms!651234567[4]fax!65765432[4]icq !4848484[4]james[4][4]Hello, I am sending you this message from SMS[4] [2]
As the above transmission has been preconfigured to the particular multiplatform messaging system described in PQ6711 , the system receiving the message will know that the message is From SMS number 60126526724, the Recipient List or "To" field is joe@email.com on email, 651234567 on SMS, 657654321 on Fax, 4848484 on ICQ and james on IWIM Item Wireless Instant Messenger "system"), the Message is "Hello, I am sending you this message on my email" and there are no Subject or Attachment fields indicated by the blank space between the delimiters. Potentially any code could be used as a start/stop delimiter as long as it did not also occur inside the fields, ie they have to be unique. Another example could be transmission over an email, in which case the separation could be carriage returns, or some other separator - note that each delimiter can be different. The central processing system takes this information as it would a normal message, processes and sends it.
Conveniently the above method can be extended to include a Unified Addressing System as described in the Applicant's Provisional Patent No. PQ8275 by incorporating the required syntax for each messaging platform and mailing lists.
For other central processing systems which require each type of messaging address to be in separate fields, the host messaging gateway will further process the "Recipient List" to sort the different types of platform addresses into separate fields/components by detecting them based on the methods described in the foregoing (ie. by applying certain rulesets) for detection of each type of message platform address. Once sorted and aggregated into separate fields the platform identifiers are removed from the various addresses or further configured to match the syntax required by the specific central processing system before transmitting to the central processing system. The central processing system upon receipt of the transmission would then process and send out the multiplatform message as though it originated from its dedicated messaging platform. Essentially, rulesets using methodology mentioned in the foregoing can be
•designed for any multiplatform or unified message solution to identify the various message components and platform addresses, separate the identified message components into the required fields and reconfiguring the syntax of each component so that it fits a format that the subject multiplatform messaging solution recognises.
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 components of a message and the multiplatform recipient addressees based on rulesets or user definition,
2. The system recomposes the message (including ancillary information like sender name, subject, date, etc.) into a format suitable for the respective identified platforms from step (1),
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, eg 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 regardless of the platform or system upon which the user is on. There is not presently available a system which does enable a message from any one platform to be automatically sent to multiple different messaging platforms.
Whilst the method and system of the present invention has been summarised and explained by illustrative application it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that many widely varying embodiments and applications are within the teaching and scope of the present invention, and that the examples presented herein are by way of illustration only and should not be construed as limiting the scope of this invention.

Claims

THE CLAIMS DEFINING THE INVENTION ARE AS FOLLOWS
1. A method to enable a user to transmit a message from a base 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 and transmits said message to a host messaging platform; said host messaging platform then extracts and 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 host messaging platform then forwards said message to each said recipient on the respective intended messaging platform(s).
2. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said user is only able to send messages to said host messaging platform.
3. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said user is unaware that said message is being forwarded to said host messaging platform.
4. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein said host messaging platform is able to send messages to multiple recipients, each recipient having one or more accounts on various messaging platforms.
5. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said base messaging platform formats each said message prior to said message being forwarded to said host messaging platform.
6. - A method as claimed in claim 5, wherein message headers and message body's are formatted.
7. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said host messaging platform compares said contact information with a set of predefined formats to determine the intended platform.
8. A method as claimed in claim 7, wherein said host messaging platform sorts said contact information into common messaging platforms.
9. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said user selects addresses from a list or database of addresses stored on said host messaging platform.
10. A system to enable a user to send a message from a base messaging platform to a plurality of recipients, wherein said recipients reside on a plurality of intended messaging platforms, and said user enters contact information for each said recipient; and wherein said message is forwarded to a host messaging platform; said host messaging platform extracts and analyses said contact information for each said recipient to determine which messaging platform is intended for each said recipient; and said host messaging platform forwards said message to each said recipient on respective intended messaging platforms.
11. A system as claimed in claim 10 wherein said plurality of recipients includes at least one person residing on a plurality of said messaging platforms.
12. A system as claimed in claim 10 or claim 11 , wherein said user forwards said message to said host messaging platform.
13. A system as claimed in claim 10 or claim 11 , wherein said system automatically forwards said message to said host messaging platform.
14. A system as claimed in any one of claims 10 to 13, wherein said base messaging platform formats said message prior to said message being forwarded to said host messaging platform.
15. A system as claimed in claim 14, wherein message headers and message body are formatted.
16. A system as claimed in any one of claims 10 to 15, wherein said host messaging platform compares said contact information with a set of predefined formats to determine the intended platform.
17. A system as claimed in claim 16, wherein said host messaging platform sorts said contact information into common messaging platforms.
18. A system as claimed in any one of claims 10 to 17, wherein said user selects addresses from a list or database of addresses stored on said host messaging platform.
19. A system as claimed in any one of claims 10 to 18, wherein said base messaging platform can be any one of: telex, facsimile, email, sms, icq, web, set- top box and instant messenger.
20. A system as claimed in any one of claims 10 to 19, wherein said intended messaging platforms include telephone, telex, facsimile, email, sms, icq, web, set- top box and instant messenger.
21. A method to enable a user to transmit a message from a base messaging platform to a multiplatform messaging system, wherein said multiplatform messaging system is capable of forwarding a message to multiple recipients on multiple messaging platforms; and wherein said user enters message and contact information for at least one recipient and transmits said message and contact information to a host messaging platform; said host messaging platform then transforms said message and contact information into a format suitable for said multiplatform messaging system and forwards the transformed message to the multiplatform messaging system.
22. A system to enable a user to send a message from a base messaging platform to a plurality of recipients, wherein said recipients reside on at least one intended messaging platform, and said user enters contact information for each said recipient; and wherein said message is forwarded to a host messaging platform; said host messaging platform extracts and analyses said contact information for each said recipient to determine which messaging platform is intended for each said recipient; and said host messaging platform forwards said message to each said recipient on respective intended messaging platforms.
PCT/SG2001/000204 2000-10-10 2001-10-10 Proxy-client multiplatform messaging enabler system WO2002032096A1 (en)

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