Patent ID: 7383347
Filing Date: 2008-06-03
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A gateway for use in a hierarchical gateway system, the gateway comprising: an input interface configured to receive a message directed to an end-user device; a transcoder coupled to receive the message from the input interface, the transcoder outputting a modified message after modifying message content by transcoding in at least one manner required by all end-user devices downstream of the gateway by determining required transcoding based on information describing characteristics of the end-user devices downstream of the gateway to allow all end-user devices downstream of the gateway to receive and display the message content and modifying message content by at least one of removing at least one of image and audio content from the message, modifying at least one of image and audio content in the message, removing attachments from the message, summarizing message content, removing confidential material from the message and summarizing information about the message; and an output interface configured to direct the modified message output from the transcoder to a downstream gateway coupled to a subset of all end-user devices downstream of the gateway, where the downstream gateway is configured to further modify the modified message by transcoding in a manner required by all end-user devices in the subset.