Abstract:
A method for realizing a group-sending message service of the present invention is provided. The address information of a plurality of recipients assigned by a user is carried in a message body, and then a message application server finishes analyzing a group-sending flow directed to a plurality of users. The present invention further provides an apparatus for realizing the method and a system thereof. Since it needs performing communication between terminals and the server merely once, the network resource is saved. Because the group-sending address list is edited into the message body, it is more flexible for a user to assign destination recipients without being limited by the forms and numbers of recipients, and enriches the function of group-sending message service. Further, a provider can even supply a group-sending message to customers as a separate service, thus having a desirable commercial value.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0001]    This application is a continuation of International Patent Application No. PCT/CN2006/002754, filed Oct. 18, 2006, which claims priority to Chinese Patent Application No. 200510121231.9, filed Dec. 22, 2005, both of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. 
     
    
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
       [0002]    The present invention relates to IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) network technologies in the communication field, and in particular to a method, device, and system for realizing a group-sending message service. 
       BACKGROUND 
       [0003]    Message service is one of the most widely used data services in the current mobile communication market. With the development of communication technologies, especially the emergence of IMS domain, the content offered by the message service becomes increasingly abundant. Currently, the message service mainly includes short message service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS), instant messaging (IM), E-mail, voice mail, and so on. Group-sending message is one of the basic requirements for the message service, and has prosperous and wide applications. Presently, in the mobile communication for Circuit Switched (CS) domain and Packet Switched (PS) domain, the group-sending message function is generally achieved through cyclic operations of the sending user or cyclical sending operations of a mobile user equipment (UE) as the sending party, and the message server (SMS center or MMS center) itself is not responsible for group-sending messages. In the prior art, it mainly includes the following solutions: 
         [0004]    1. Group-Sending Message Service Based Upon Cyclic Operations of the User 
         [0005]    The basic concept of the solution is: the sending user repeatedly inputs numbers of destination users for many times after writing a short message and sends the message to the message server for many times, so as to achieve the group-sending of the message. This solution has the following defects: 
         [0006]    1) The UE has to communicate with the server for many times, which occupies network resources. 
         [0007]    2) Group-sending message to a local group or a remote group is not supported. 
         [0008]    3) The user has to track the operation all the way, and the group-sending speed is rather low, which causes an unpleasant user experience. 
         [0009]    2. Group-Sending Message Service Based Upon the Cyclic Sending Operation by the UE 
         [0010]    The basic concept of the solution is that: the sending user edits a message, assigns a local group, and then instructs the UE to send the message. The UE cyclically sends messages to individual users in the group. The solution has the following defects. 
         [0011]    1) The UE still has to communicate with the server for many times, which occupies network resources. 
         [0012]    2) The group-sending messages to a remote group, a few of individual irrelevant recipients, and a group of recipients mixed by a local group, a remote group, and individual recipients are not supported. 
         [0013]    3) The group-sending operation is achieved through cyclically sending by the UE, which is restricted by the limit of UE capability, and the UE has to send a message for many times, which is rather slow and thus causes an unpleasant user experience. 
         [0014]    3. Group-Sending Message Service Based on Internet 
         [0015]    The basic concept of the solution is to connect to Internet through the cell phone terminal, so as to use the instant messaging software, chat room, and E-mail on the network for group-sending messages. The solution has the following defects: 
         [0016]    1) The user has to pay an additional fee and use a cell phone terminal capable of accessing Internet. The mobile telecommunication user has to subscribe the Internet network services. 
         [0017]    2) The receiving user and the receiving manner thereof are restricted. Particularly, the message can only be sent to users who have registered in the chatting software. Only those receiving users, who have had the network chatting software bound to his/her mobile UEs, can receive group-sending messages through the cell phone terminals. 
         [0018]    4. Group-Sending Message Service Based on Address Interface Extension or Remote Group Customization 
         [0019]    The basic concept of the solution is that: the group-sending message service is achieved by customizing a remote group in the server or extending the address interfaces between the UE and the server to send a plurality of recipients&#39; addresses to the server once. The solution requires only one communication between the UE and the server, which greatly saves the network resources. However, the solution has the following defects. 
         [0020]    1) The destination users cannot be selected flexibly. In other words, the destination users are either a pre-customized remote group or a group of several local users. Additionally, the group-sending message service to a group of recipients mixed by a local group, a remote group, and individual recipients is not supported. 
         [0021]    2) In selecting local users for group-sending, the number of recipients is limited by the interface, which is typically not more than six, which affects the flexibility of the group-sending message service and causes a low efficiency. 
       SUMMARY 
       [0022]    The present invention is directed to a method, device and system for realizing a group-sending message service to a plurality of users flexibly. 
         [0023]    To achieve the above objective, the present invention adopts a technical solution as follows. 
         [0024]    According to an embodiment, the present invention provides a method for realizing a group-sending message service, which includes: 
         [0025]    receiving a message from a user equipment(UE); 
         [0026]    determining a message body of the massage containing address information of a plurality of recipients according to the destination address of the message; 
         [0027]    analyzing the message to obtain addresses of all common users in the recipients; and 
         [0028]    constructing messages according to the addresses of all common users, and sending the messages individually. 
         [0029]    According to another embodiment, the present invention provides a method for realizing a group-sending message service, which includes: 
         [0030]    editing a message content to be sent to a plurality of recipients assigned by a user and address information of the plurality of recipients into a message body of a message; 
         [0031]    setting a destination address of the message as a specific uniform resource identifier (URI), and 
         [0032]    sending the constructed message to a message application server. 
         [0033]    According to an embodiment, the present invention provides a device for realizing a group-sending message service, which includes a message sending and receiving unit, a message address detecting unit, a message destination address analyzing unit, and a message destination address reconstruction unit. 
         [0034]    The message sending and receiving unit is adapted to receive and send a message. A message body of the message contains message content and address information of recipients assigned by a user. 
         [0035]    The message address detecting unit is adapted to detect whether the destination address of a message received by the message sending and receiving unit is a specific uniform resource identifier (URI) or not; 
         [0036]    The message destination address analyzing unit is adapted to extract an address of each recipient from the message body when the destination address of the message detected by the message address detecting unit is a specific URI; and 
         [0037]    The message destination address reconstruction unit is adapted to construct messages to be sent to common users based on the address of each recipient extracted by the message destination address analyzing unit, and transmit the constructed messages to the message sending and receiving unit. 
         [0038]    According to an embodiment, the present invention provides a system for realizing a group-sending message service, which includes a URI-list server and a message application server communicating with a user equipment (UE). 
         [0039]    The UE is adapted to edit message content to be sent to a plurality of recipients and address information of the plurality of recipients assigned by a user into a message body of a message, set a destination address of the message as a specific uniform resource identifier (URI), and then send the constructed message to the message application server. 
         [0040]    The message application server is adapted to receive a message from the user equipment (UE), detect whether the destination address of the received message is a specific URI or not, and obtain addresses of all common users according to addresses information of recipients when the destination address of the message is a specific URI, construct messages according to the addresses of common users and send the messages. 
         [0041]    The URI-list server is adapted to analyze the message body of the message to obtain addresses information of recipients for being used by the message AS. 
         [0042]    With the above technical solution, the present invention achieves the following advantageous technical effects. The group-sending address list is edited into the message body, and a specific URI is taken as a symbol for the server to recognize the message containing the group-sending address list, so that the user has a great flexibility in assigning target recipients, without being limited by the type and number of the recipients. Therefore, the group-sending message service becomes more abundant in functions, and what&#39;s more, the provider can even supply a group-sending message to customers as a separate service, thus having a desirable commercial value. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0043]      FIG. 1  is a flow chart for realizing a group-sending message service according to one embodiment of the present invention; 
           [0044]      FIG. 2  is a principle block diagram of a device according to one embodiment of the present invention; 
           [0045]      FIG. 3  is a principle block diagram of a device according to one embodiment of the present invention; 
           [0046]      FIG. 4  is a schematic view of a networking system according to one of the present invention; 
           [0047]      FIG. 5  is a schematic view of a networking system according to one embodiment of the present invention; 
           [0048]      FIG. 6  is a schematic view of a networking system according to one embodiment of the present invention; and 
           [0049]      FIG. 7  is a schematic view of a networking system according to one embodiment of the present invention. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0050]    The present invention is further described in detail below through the detailed descriptions by reference to the drawings. 
         [0051]      FIG. 1  is a flow chart for realizing a group-sending message service according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, which includes the following steps. 
         [0052]    Block  101 : The user equipment (UE) edits the message content and address information of a plurality of recipients assigned by the user into a message body, and sends the message to a message application server. 
         [0053]    The UE may edit a group-sending address list formed by the addresses of the plurality of recipients assigned by the user into the message body. The group-sending address list includes URIs of common users and/or a URI of a remote group. With respect to the common users and/or the remote group, the URIs thereof may be directly used to form a recipient list. With respect to a local group assigned by the user, the URIs of common users and/or a remote group in the local group may be extracted and added into the recipient list. 
         [0054]    When the system is planned, the message destination address of a group-sending message may be agreed as a specific URI, such as the URI of the message application server, or the URI of the remote group. Thus, the UE may set the destination address of a group-sending message to be sent to a plurality of recipients as the specific URI, so that the message application server can recognize the group-sending message once it receives the message, and carry out corresponding processing. 
         [0055]    Block  102 : The message application server receives the message. 
         [0056]    In Block  103 , the message application server determines whether the received message is a group-sending message or not based on the destination address thereof. 
         [0057]    As mentioned above, the destination address of the group-sending message is agreed as a specific URI. Therefore, upon receiving the message, the message application server determines whether the message is a group-sending message or not based on the destination address thereof. 
         [0058]    If the destination address of the message is a URI of a common user, the message is not a group-sending message; if the destination address of the message is a specific URI, such as the URI of the message application server or the URI of the remote group, the message is a group-sending message. 
         [0059]    If the message is not a group-sending message, proceeds to Block  104 ; otherwise, proceeds to Block  105 . 
         [0060]    Block  104 : The message application server performs message service processing and sends the message. Then, it turns to Block  108 . 
         [0061]    Block  105 : The message application server analyzes the message to obtain addresses of individual recipient from the message body. 
         [0062]    In practical implementation, if the destination address of the message is the URI of a remote group, the URI of the remote group is sent to a group application server in the network. The group application server with remote group information of the user stored therein analyzes an address of each common user in the remote group based on the remote group information of the user, and sends the analysis result to the message application server. Of course, the remote group information of the user may be stored in the message application server, and the message application server finishes the analyzing process directly. 
         [0063]    If the destination address of the message is the URI of the message application server, the message application server analyzes the group-sending address list carried in the message, so as to obtain an address of each recipient in the group-sending address list. 
         [0064]    It should be noted that, The URIs of a remote group may exist in the individual recipients after the application server finishing the analysis. As for the URIs of the remote group, the address of each common user in the remote group may be analyzed by the message application server itself or the group application server as described above. 
         [0065]    Block  106 : A valid address is extracted from the addresses of all the common users analyzed. 
         [0066]    Block  107 : Messages are sequentially constructed with the addresses of individual common users and sent individually. 
         [0067]    Block  108 : This flow ends. 
         [0068]    As known from the above process, with the present invention, any user can select group send messages when sending messages as a caller, so long as the user has applied the message service. Moreover, the recipients of the group-sending message may be a local group, a remote group, or a group of recipients randomly mixed by a local group, a remote group, and individual recipients. Then, the message application server sends the message. The message application server can implement the process of sending the message to all the assigned recipients simply through the UE at the sending party sending a message to the message application server once. 
         [0069]    If the assigned recipient is merely a remote group, the UE simply needs to edit the message content into the message body, set the destination address of the message as the URI of the remote group, and send the message to the message application server. After receiving the message, the message application server determines the message as a group-sending message based on the destination address thereof. Here, the message application server may analyze the URI of the remote group by itself, or send the URI of the remote group to a group application server in the network for being analyzed to obtain addresses of individual common users corresponding to the URI of the remote group. Thereafter, the messages are constructed on the basis of the addresses of individual common users and sent individually. 
         [0070]      FIG. 2  is a principle block diagram of a device for realizing a group-sending message service according to one embodiment of the present invention. 
         [0071]    The device includes a message sending and receiving unit  201 , a message address detecting unit  202 , a message destination address analyzing unit  203 , and a message destination address reconstruction unit  204 . 
         [0072]    The message sending and receiving unit  201  is adapted to receive and send a message. As mentioned in the above descriptions of the method according to the present invention, when the user wants to send a group-sending message, the UE needs to edit the message content and address information of a plurality of recipients assigned by the user into a message body for sending. Therefore, the message received by the message sending and receiving unit  201  may be a single sending message or a group-sending message, and the message body of the group-sending message contains the message content and the address information of the recipients assigned by the user. 
         [0073]    The message address detecting unit  202  detects the message received by the message sending and receiving unit  201  to determine whether the destination address of the message is a specific URI or not, and if the destination address of the message is a specific URI, the message destination address analyzing unit  203  is notified to extract an address of each recipient from the message body in order to obtain addresses of all common users. Then, the message destination address reconstruction unit  204  constructs the messages to be sent to individual common users based on the address of each common user extracted by the message destination address analyzing unit  203  and transmits the constructed messages to the message sending and receiving unit  201 . The message sending and receiving unit  201  sends the messages sequentially to the corresponding common users. If the destination address of the message is not a specific URI, other service processing for the message is directly performed or the message is forwarded. 
         [0074]    The specific URI may be the URI of a remote group or the URI of the present device. Besides, the addresses of the plurality of recipients assigned by the user include not only the addresses of common users, but also the address of a remote group assigned by the user. Therefore, a group serving unit is further configured in the device according to the present invention, and adapted to store the remote group information of the user. When the URIs of a remote group further exist in the address information of the recipients assigned by the user, the address of each common user in the group is extracted and returned to the message destination address analyzing unit. 
         [0075]      FIG. 3  is a principle block diagram of a device according to one embodiment of the present invention. 
         [0076]    The group serving unit  205  is respectively communicated with the message address detecting unit  202  and the message destination address analyzing unit  203 . 
         [0077]    If the message address detecting unit  202  detects that the destination address of the message received by the message sending and receiving unit  201  is the URI of a remote group, the URI of the remote group is sent to the group serving unit  205 . Then, the group serving unit  205  analyzes addresses of all the common users in the group based on the remote group information of the user stored therein, and returns the analysis result to the message destination address analyzing unit  203 . 
         [0078]    If the message address detecting unit  202  detects that the destination address of the message received by the message sending and receiving unit  201  is the URI of the present device, the message address detecting unit  202  notifies the message destination address analyzing unit  203  to extract the address of each recipient and the message content from the message body. If the addresses of the plurality of recipients assigned by the user include a remote group address, the remote group address is analyzed and sent to the group serving unit  205 . Then, the group serving unit  205  analyzes the addresses of all the recipients corresponding to the remote group based on the remote group information of the user stored therein, and returns the analysis result to the message destination address analyzing unit  203 . 
         [0079]    The group serving unit  205  may also serve as an independent entity for achieving the function of group address analyzing, for example, a group application server in the existing network. In this case, the group serving unit  205  may interact with the message destination address analyzing unit  203  through an XCAP (XML Configuration Access Protocol) and return the extracted addresses of common recipients in the group to the message destination address analyzing unit  203  in the form of XML text. Other protocols and text formats may be employed. 
         [0080]    The present invention further provides a system for realizing a group-sending message service.  FIG. 4  is a schematic view of a networking system according to one embodiment of the present invention. The main network entities include: 
         [0081]    An UE  401  edits the message content and the group-sending address list assigned by the user into a message body, sets the destination address of the message into a specific URI, and sends the message. 
         [0082]    A message application server (AS)  402  is responsible for the message service processing, which mainly includes: receiving the message; detecting whether the destination address of the message is a specific URI or not, and if the destination address of the message is a specific URI, sending the group-sending address list in the message body to the URI-list server and requesting the URI-list server to analyze the list; receiving addresses of individual recipients sent back from the URI-list server; determining whether there are URIs of a remote group existing among the addresses of individual recipients sent back from the URI-list server or not, and if there are URIs of a remote group existing among the addresses of individual recipients sent back from the URI-list server, sending the URIs of the remote group to the group AS individually; receiving addresses of common users sent back from the group AS; and then constructing and sending messages individually. 
         [0083]    The message AS includes a message sending and receiving unit, a message address detecting unit, a message destination address analyzing unit, and a message destination address reconstruction unit. The message sending and receiving unit is adapted to receive and send a message. The message address detecting unit is adapted to detect whether the destination address of the received message is a specific URI or not. The message destination address analyzing unit is adapted to extract the address information of each recipient and the message content from the message body. The message destination address reconstruction unit is adapted to construct messages to be sent to individual common users based on the address of each common users and the message content extracted by the message destination address analyzing unit, and transmit the constructed messages to the message sending and receiving unit. The operating principles thereof have been demonstrated in the above description of the device according to the present invention, which will not be described again herein. 
         [0084]    A group AS  404  is adapted to store remote group information of the user. The group AS  404  receives a request from the user to store a remote group of the user, analyzes the URI of the remote group sent by the message AS, and returns all the information contained in the group to the message AS generally in the form of XML text. Generally, the message AS interact with the group AS through an XCAP. 
         [0085]    The URI-list server  403  is adapted to analyze the group-sending address list carried in the message to split the list into individual Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) URIs for being used by the message AS, and communicate with the message AS via a message interface. 
         [0086]    The network entities may also include a Serving Call Session Control Function (S-CSCF, one of the essential elements in an IMS network) entity  405 . The UE may communicate with the Message AS through the IMS network elements such as the S-CSCF based on the SIP protocol. 
         [0087]    The group AS and the URI-list server are two functional entities. In practical application, they may be integrated with the message AS. That is, the message AS is responsible for analyzing the URI list or analyzing the remote group, while handling the message service. 
         [0088]      FIG. 5  is a schematic view of a system according to one embodiment of the present invention. 
         [0089]    In this embodiment, the message AS  502  provides the function of the URI-list server. 
         [0090]      FIG. 6  is a schematic view of a system according to one embodiment of the present invention. 
         [0091]    In this embodiment, besides handling the message service, the message AS  602  also serves as a group AS for analyzing the remote group. 
         [0092]      FIG. 7  is a schematic view of a system according to one embodiment of the present invention. 
         [0093]    In this embodiment, the message AS  702  provides the functions of both the group AS and the URI-list server. 
         [0094]    With the system according to the present invention, the process of message group-sending is realized as follows: 
         [0095]    1) The UE edits the message content and the group-sending address list assigned by the user into the message body, sets the destination address of the message as the URI of the Message AS, then sends the message to the Message AS. The group-sending address list contains URIs of several common users and/or a remote group. 
         [0096]    In order to enable the user to select the destination recipients flexibly, the UE may construct the group-sending address list in such a manner that: if the recipients assigned by the user are several irrelevant common users and/or a remote group, the URIs thereof are directly used to form the recipient list; if the recipients assigned by the user further include a local group, URIs of common users and/or a remote group in the local group are extracted and added into the recipient list. In this way, the user can freely select irrelevant common users, a local group, and a remote group to form a group of recipients, which is convenient for using the service. 
         [0097]    Furthermore, if the recipient assigned by the user is a single common user or a single remote group, the UE may directly set the destination address of the message as the recipient. Both the above two cases are handled according to existing point-to-point messaging and point-to-multipoint customized group messaging respectively, the present invention is not involved at all. 
         [0098]    2) Upon receiving the request to send a message from the user, the Message AS first detects whether the destination address of the message is the URI of the Message AS or not, and if the destination address of the message is the URI of the Message AS, it is indicated that the message body of the message contains a group-sending address list. The Message AS thus sends the group-sending address list to the URI-list server and requests the URI-list server to analyze the list. 
         [0099]    Furthermore, if the address is determined to be the URI of a common user, the message service is directly handled and the message is sent. If the address is determined to be the URI of a remote group, it is indicated the message is a point-to-multipoint customized group-sending message. The Message AS needs to send the URI thereof to the Group AS, requests the Group AS to analyze the URI, and then send the messages individually based on the analysis result. In both the above cases, the processing may be proceeded according to the existing flow. 
         [0100]    3) The URI-list server analyzes the URIs of individual recipients from the group-sending address list and sends the URIs to the Message AS. 
         [0101]    4) The Message AS first determines whether the URIs for a remote group exist among the URIs of the recipients or not, and if the URIs for a remote group exist among the URIs of the recipients, sends the URIs of the remote group to the Group AS one bye one. The Group AS analyzes the received URIs of the remote group and sends back URIs of common users in the remote group to the Message AS. 
         [0102]    After obtaining all the URIs, the Message AS extracts legal URIs from the URIs of all the common users, and constructs messages through using individual legal URIs and sends the messages individually. The legality verification aims at ensuring the validity of information to be sent, so as to avoid meaningless wastes of network resources. 
         [0103]    The present invention can realize a group-sending message service based on an IMS network. The sending user can rapidly send the same message to a plurality of recipients merely through a single operation. As for the sending party, such a group-sending solution has simple operation and abundant functions, which reduces the interaction frequencies between the UE and the message server, alleviates the burden of the server, and enhances the network performance. As for the operators, the current group-sending message service enriches the content of the message service and satisfies the users&#39; requirement for sending the same message to a plurality of users through simple operations, which may attract more users to subscribe the message service. Besides, the operator may offer the group-sending message service to users as a separate service, thereby gaining more profits, which provides the present invention with a broad commercial prospect. 
         [0104]    Though the objectives, technical schemes, and beneficial effects of the present invention have been disclosed above by exemplary embodiments, the present invention is not limited to these. Any modifications, equivalent substitutions, and variations made within the scope of the present invention fall within the scope of the present invention.