Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/EP1240756B1/en
Timestamp: 2019-07-19 00:58:17
Document Index: 80188401

Matched Legal Cases: ['arty 12', 'arty 13', 'arty 13', 'arty 12', 'arty 13', 'arty 13', 'arty 13', 'arty 12', 'arty 903', 'arty 903']

EP1240756B1 - Anonymity in a presence management system - Google Patents
EP1240756B1
EP1240756B1 EP00979753A EP00979753A EP1240756B1 EP 1240756 B1 EP1240756 B1 EP 1240756B1 EP 00979753 A EP00979753 A EP 00979753A EP 00979753 A EP00979753 A EP 00979753A EP 1240756 B1 EP1240756 B1 EP 1240756B1
EP00979753A
EP1240756A2 (en
1999-12-14 Priority to US461654 priority Critical
1999-12-14 Priority to US09/461,654 priority patent/US6853634B1/en
2000-11-27 Application filed by Nortel Networks Ltd filed Critical Nortel Networks Ltd
2000-11-27 Priority to PCT/GB2000/004512 priority patent/WO2001045343A2/en
2002-09-18 Publication of EP1240756A2 publication Critical patent/EP1240756A2/en
2008-03-26 Publication of EP1240756B1 publication Critical patent/EP1240756B1/en
Typically, receivers of communications have little control over what communications are received, at which times, and in which modes. In face to face communications, humans are able to control the degree of interaction which they allow with particular people or groups. However, with today's communication networks the degree and resolution of the control of electronically mediated communications is much less. For example, telephone numbers are often fully public (in a directory) and are typically issued on demand to others who explicitly ask and know the full address. Also, a telephone number, once released to others, has continuing validity unless the telephone number is changed at great inconvenience and expense. Similar problems apply for email addresses. This means that it is easy for others, such as salesmen or nuisance callers to contact you more times than desired. In order to prevent this problem, telephone numbers and email addresses may be withheld but this gives the disadvantage of isolating the "owner" of the telephone number or email address.
MSN messenger service is an instant messaging service for use on the Internet. Users are able to identify when others are online and to send and receive instant messages. By identifying when others are online it is possible to send an instant message to other online individuals or to communicate with several other online individuals at once. In this way the communication and messages are more "real time" than conventional email for example, where an email message may simply remain in an individual's email inbox for some time before it is accessed. The service enables a user to identify when another party in an internet conversation is typing at their computer terminal keyboard. That is, using the instant message service it is possible to "talk" to more than one person at a time in a similar way to an online chat session. The user is also able to control which other parties are able to identify or "see" when the user is online and also to control who is able to send messages to the user. In this respect the MSN service differs from conventional online chat programs. Automatic notification of receipt of messages is provided. However, instant messages in MSN messenger service have a temporary quality. Unless the user deliberately saves these messages they are lost when the message service is shut down.. This contrasts with conventional email messages in most email systems which remain until a user actively deletes them. Information about MSN messenger service is provided on the Internet at http://messenger.msn.com.
Using ICQ, messages, files and web pages can be sent to other online users of ICQ in real time and ICQ also supports chat, voice, message board, data conferencing and internet games. When a new user installs ICQ the user is prompted to register at a server which is connected to a broad network of other servers spanning the internet. In the registration process the user receives a unique ICQ identifier number and is able to enter personal information. When the registered user logs onto the Internet the ICQ system detects this and allows other ICQ users to recognise that that user has logged on. The registered user is able to compile a list of friends and associates (these friends and associates must also be registered with ICQ or a compatible instant messaging service) and the ICQ system determines when these individuals are logged onto the internet. Alerting messages are sent to the user to inform him or her when members of the list of friends and associates sign on or off the ICQ system. Users are also able to control who contacts them and to hide their presence on the internet when this is required. Information about ICQ is given on the Internet at http://www.icg.com.
Some instant messaging services include so called "buddy lists" which are lists of other users of that instant messaging service which have been selected by an individual user as being those of interest. The individual user is then informed whether or not the members of the "buddy list" are currently using and available for contact via the instant messaging service. Such buddy lists are essentially attributes of the owning user and do not have any autonomous status in the instant messaging system, thus playing only a passive role therein.
Unified messaging systems are known, such as Nortel Network's own product CALL PILOT (trade mark). This enables fax, email and voice mail messages to be received via a single "in box" and users are able to set up filters to allow only certain messages to reach them. For example, users are able to listen to textual email messages converted automatically into speech using their mobile telephone and are able to filter out non-urgent messages. However, this is not a presence management system and does not monitor the activity of users on a communications network.
Products are available which act as communications network based "secretaries" to take a user's calls. For example, WILDFIRE (trade mark) produced by Wildfire communications, Inc and PORTICO (trade mark) produced by General Magic, Inc. The WILDFIRE product uses speech recognition to help users manager their phone, fax and email communications. This product dials outgoing calls, announces callers using a voice recording that is played back, records contact details and is able to route incoming calls to any telephone specified by a user. However, this system is not a presence management system because it does not obtain and manage information about the activities of users and monitor their "presence" on the communications network. Also, it is not an instant messaging system and does not enable users who are trying to contact another user to obtain information about the best mode and time to do this. Details about the WILDFIRE product are available on the Internet at www.wildfire.com. Details about PORTICO are available on the Internet at www.generalmagic.com. PORTICO is similar to WILDFIRE and is limited in the same respects as PORTICO.
"SIP for Presence" INTERNET DRAFT by J Rosenberg and H Schulzrinne (13 November 1998) describes a method of using SIP to allow users to control who contacts them, using which medium, for example, telephone or email according to, for example, the time of day, the person calling, or their location. It does not, however, provide a method whereby a user can choose to limit the amount of interaction they have with a watching party.
According to the present invention there is provided a presence management system (10) suitable for use in a multiple access communications network (11) by watching parties (12) and watched parties (13), said presence management system (10) comprising:-
(i) A first input means arranged to access a store of watched party information (14);
(ii) A store of information about connection criteria;
(iii) second input means arranged to receive information about events that occur in said multiple access communications network (11); and
(iv) third input means arranged to receive connection requests from watching parties (12); and wherein said presence management system (10) being arranged to provide anonymous forwarding address responsive to a request from a watching party (12) for a connection with a watched party (13), the forwarding address for that watched party (13) being provided under controlled conditions so that the watching party (12) cannot gain access to the watched party's direct connection adress and the presence management system being further arranged to maintain operable the forwarding address for a limited number of connection attempts, said controlled conditions being determined on the basis of said watched party information, said information about connection criteria and said input information about events.
A computer program stored on a computer readable medium, said computer program being adapted to control a presence management system (10), said presence management system (10) being suitable for use in a multiple access communications network (11) by watched parties (13) and watching parties (12), said computer program being arranged to control said presence management system (10) such that:-
(i) a store of watched party information (14) is accessed;
(iii) information about events that occur in said multiple access communications network (11) is received via an input means; and
(iv) connection requests are received from watchers (12); and characterised in that responsive to a request from a watching party (12) for a connection with a watched party (13), an anonymous forwarding address for that watched party (13) is provided under controlled conditions so that the watching party (12) cannot gain access to the watched party's direct connection address and the presence management system being further arranged to maintain operable the forwarding address for a limited number of connection attempts, said controlled conditions being determined on the basis of said watched party information, said information about connection criteria and said input information about events.
A mutliple access communications network comprising a presence management system as defined in the first aspect above.
A method of operating a presence management system (10) suitable for use in a multiple access communications network (11), said presence management system (10) being for use by watching parties (12) and watched parties (13), at least one of said parties (12,13) being an automated service, said method comprising the steps of:-
(i) accessing a store of watched party information (14);
(iii) receiving information about events that occur in said multiple access communications network (11); and characterised by
(iv) on receipt of a request from a watching party (12) for a connection with a watched party (13), characterised by providing an anonymous forwarding address responsive to the said request for a connection with a watched party, the forwarding address being provided under controlled conditions, so that the watching party (12) cannot gain access to the watched party's direct connection address and the presence management system being further arranged to maintain operable the forwarding address for a limited number of connection attempts, said controlled conditions being determined on the basis of said watched party information, said information about connection criteria and said input information about events.
Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a presence management system.
Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of the presence management system of Figure 1 with a conference call service as a watching party.
Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of the presence management system of Figure 1 with a ticket agency service as a watched party.
Figure 4 is a schematic diagram of the presence management system of Figure 1 with an aggregate of watching parties and an aggregate of watched parties.
Figure 5 is a schematic diagram of a presence management system.
Figure 7 is a flow diagram for another example of a computer program for controlling a presence management system.
Figure 8 is a schematic diagram illustrating the use of "partially interpreted event triggers".
The term "multiple access communications network" is used to refer to a communications network which comprises several different types of communications network and which can be accessed using a plurality of different types of terminal which also comprise part of the communications network. The communications network can be accessed by a plurality of such terminals at any one time. For example, a public switched telephone network that is connected to a mobile telephone network is a multiple access communications network. This is because the overall network is made up of two different types of communications network and the overall network can be accessed using many different types of terminal such as a conventional telephone handset, a facsimile machine, a mobile telephone or a modem. A multiple access communications network can be thought of as a "federated" network and the component communications networks within a multiple access communications network can be connection-less networks (e.g. the Internet) or connection oriented networks (e.g. public switched telephone networks).
The term "access communications network" is used to refer to a communications network which is situated on the edge or periphery of a core communications network and through which users gain access to the core communications network.
The term "presence management system" is used to refer to an automated system for use in a communications network which provides a single point of presence for a user of that communications network. A point of presence is a source of information about whether a user is available for contact on a communications network, where that user is located on the network, and in which mode that user should preferably be contacted in. A presence management system provides a single point of presence despite the fact that a user has more than one terminal for accessing the communications network in different modes and possibly by different access communications networks. A presence management system also provides context information rather than just raw presence information. Raw presence information is unprocessed information about the availability, location and capability of a user on the communications network. A presence management system processes raw presence information according to rules or other pre-specified criteria about users in order to provide context information that is simpler and easier for human operators to understand.
Figure 1 illustrates a presence management system 10 which is connected to a multiple access communications network 11. Also connected to the multiple access communications network 11 are a plurality of watching parties 12 and a plurality of watched parties 13. In Figure 1, each watching party 12 and each watched party 13 is shown as having a single connection to the multiple access communications network 11. However, this is not necessarily the case. For example, a watched party 13 can be an individual who has access to the multiple access communications network via a mobile telephone, a lap-top computer and via two different personal computers. Similarly, a watching party may have more than one connection to the multiple access communications network.
The presence management system allows watching parties to send messages and communications to watched parties even when those watched parties are not "present" or available on the communications network. For example, when a watched party is not logged onto the internet he or she may allow the presence management system to forward email messages and faxes. In this respect the presence management system differs from an instant messaging system.
One or more watched parties 13 may be services and similarly one or more watching parties 12 may be services. For example, as shown in Figure 2 a watching party may be a conference call service 20.
The term "service" is used to refer to an automated service which is operable without human intervention. For example, a computerised cinema ticket service. By allowing watching parties or watched parties to be such services it is possible for users of a presence management system to be notified of conditions or availability of goods or services without the intervention of a human operator.
Referring to Figure 2, the conference call service 20 is able to send connection requests to the presence management system in the same way that any other watching party 12 may, as described above. If the conference call service is required to set up a conference call between three or more watched parties 13, it subscribes with the presence management system 10 in order to be notified when changes in the state of the required watched parties occur. The presence management system 10 will then inform the watching party, which in this case is a conference call service 20, when each required watched party 13 becomes available. In this way the conference call service 20 is able to set up a conference call once each required watched party is available.
However, the information about availability from the presence management system is effectively "real time" so that if a change in state of a watched party occurs just after the conference call is attempted, then that party may not join the conference call. In one example, the conference call service may advantageously form the required watched parties into a group or aggregate as described in more detail below. Then, once notifications of availability are given for a certain number of group members, or a quorum of group members, the conference call is attempted.
It is also possible for a watched party to be a service. For example, Figure 3 illustrates a ticket agency service 30 which is a watched party. As for any other watched party 13, a watched party that is a service is able to store information 14, and rules 15 in the presence management system 10 and to register with the system 10. Watching parties may send connect or notification requests to the presence management system 10 in respect of the ticket agency service. The notification requests contain additional information as well a simple request to be notified of a change of state in the ticket agency service. For example, the notification request could be a request to be notified about a particular type of concert ticket. Many such notification requests by different watching parties 12 may be made of the presence management system 10. Then, once tickets for the particular concert become available, the ticket agency service 30 provides information about this to the presence management system. This information is provided to the presence management system by virtue of an agreement between the ticket agency service provider and the presence management system provider. As such the event of the tickets becoming available is an example of a "partially interpreted event trigger" as described in more detail below. The presence management system is then able to send notifications to each of the interested watching parties to inform them that the tickets are available.
It is also possible for a watched party to be an aggregate or group of watched parties. Similarly a watching party may be an aggregate of watching parties. For example, Figure 4 shows a situation with an aggregate of watched parties 40 and an aggregate of watching parties 41. A group of watched parties may advantageously be formed for many reasons. For example, several watched parties with a common interest such as friends may form an aggregate in order that watching parties can monitor the presence of the group of friends as a whole. This could be useful to arrange meetings between the members of the group of friends. In another example, an association of building contractors in a certain geographical region might form an aggregate of watched parties in order that they might be easily contactable as a group rather than individually. A further example involves a sales department which have several operators taking calls (which may be telephone calls, email messages or any other suitable type of call). An aggregate of operators is formed in order that watching parties who request a contact with the aggregate are allocated to the first available operator with the relevant communication means. In another example, a workflow application requires a purchase requisition to be signed by two out of a group of five authorised signatories. By using an aggregate for the authorised signatories the request for approval is directed to the most appropriate pair of signatories taking into account factors such as presence of the signatories in the office and current activity of the signatories. There are also many similar reasons why a group of watching parties may be formed.
Aggregates differ from "Buddy lists" in several respects. (Buddy lists are described in the Prior Art section above.) Aggregates have an autonomous status from the "point of view" of the presence management system 10 and are able to take actions on their own behalf whereas this is not the case for Buddy Lists. By creating aggregates which have an autonomous status it is possible to enable aggregates to be used in any ways in which watched parties or watching parties can be used. However, Buddy lists are only used for a limited function which is pre-specified.
Aggregates may be formed by individual watching parties or watched parties contacting others and forming a group. Alternatively, aggregates may be formed dynamically by an application or service, for example, for a specific task. In the case of the conference call service discussed above, this service could, form an aggregate of all the watched parties (or conferencees) who are required members of the conference call. The conference call service monitors the status of the aggregate until say, 80% of the aggregate members are available for a conference call. The conference call is then set up, starting with the owner of the aggregate (for example). Once the call is set-up the aggregate is either destroyed or persists until the call is finished so that late comers can be joined to the ongoing call.
An aggregate is able to interact with the presence management system 10 in the same way as either a watched party 13 or a watching party 12 as described above except that a "quorum" condition is used. For example, when a watched party is an aggregate, when should the presence management system indicate to watching parties that there has been a change of state in the aggregate? Should this be when 50% of the members of the aggregate have changed state or only when all members have changed state? This issue is addressed by setting a threshold level or "quorum" condition as to the number of aggregate members required to change state before the aggregate as a whole is deemed to have changed state. Similarly, when a watching party is an aggregate, a "quorum" condition may be used to determine factors to do with the requests made by the watching party. For example, when should a request be made and what should the request be? A watched party or a watching party may be a member of more than one aggregate.
This gives four possibilities. The presence management system 10 can provide a direct connection address to the watching party. For example, this may be desired for family members and others that are specified by the watched party. In the second case, the presence management system 10 can provide an indirect connection address to the watched party. In this situation, the watching party sends communications to a forwarding address such as a P. O. Box or similar entity and that entity forwards the communications to the watched party. This means that the watching party does not gain access to the watched party's direct connection address. In a third case, the presence management system 10 itself forwards communications from the watching party direct to the watched party. Again, in this case, the watching party does not gain access to the watched party's direct connection address. Finally, in the fourth case, the presence management system 10 forwards communications from the watching party to a forwarding address such as a P. O. Box or similar entity. Again the watching party does not gain access to the watched party's direct connection address but also, the presence management system 10 itself does not "know" this direct address.
The capabilities of the presence management system 10 are extended by using so called "partially interpreted event triggers". These comprise non-communication related events that are provided from a third party service and which occur outside the multiple access communications network. Information about these events is provided to the presence management system 10 via the events input or gateway 16.
Figure 8 is a schematic diagram illustrating the use of partially interpreted event triggers. A third party service 902 such as a hotel registration system or an airline check-in system is provided and the operator of this system 902 enters into a business relationship 905 with the provider of a presence management system 900. A watched party 903 subscribes to the presence management system 900 in the manner described above in order to benefit from the presence management system service. When this watched party 903 checks into a hotel using the hotel registration service 902, then by virtue of the prior agreement 905 between the hotel registration service 902 and the presence management system 900, information about the check-in event is provided to the presence management system 900. The check-in event is referred to as a "partially interpreted event trigger" and is provided to the presence management system 900 via an event gateway 904 in a multiple access communications network (not shown).
Examples of external services which may provide partially interpreted event triggers include: security badge swipe systems, hotel registration systems, airline check-in systems and calling card systems. The term "partially interpreted" is used to refer to the fact that more information is available from partially interpreted events than just geographical location information. That is, context information is gained, associated with different types of events. For example, an airline check-in event at a particular airport generally means not only that the user is geographically at the location of the airport but also that the user is about to board a plane (for example). This context information is gained quickly, without the need for the presence management system 10 to determine that the geographical location is in the airport (for example, from the user's mobile telephone location) and then infer that in the context of an airport, the likely outcome is that the user is going to board a plane. The check-in information provides this information quickly and accurately. For example, the presence management system, without the partially interpreted event trigger, may have inferred wrongly that the user was going to board a plane, when in fact they were visiting the airport to collect someone.
More details about the presence management system are now described. The watching parties are also referred to as "watchers" and the watched parties as "individuals" or "entities" or "clients". Several definitions are now given:-
Availability: the ability of an entity to communicate at given time. In addition to "on-line" / "off-line" status, availability can represent an entity's willingness to engage in communication.
Figure 5 shows the presence management system 10 of Figure 1 in more detail. Here, a plurality of watchers 12 and a plurality of watched parties 13 have access to the presence management system 10 via a multiple access communications network 11. In this example the multiple access communications network comprises an Internet Protocol communications network 50, a wireless communications network 51, and a public switched telephone network (PSTN) 52. However, this is not essential, different types and combinations of communications networks could be used to form the multiple access communications network.
For example, an entity's profile contains the following items which may be entered by the entity or watched party or may be default information that is prespecified :-
A set of the possible context presence values for the entity, e.g. "at-home", "at-work", "travelling", "not-able-to-contact" or "unknown". For many of these the system also holds attributes, e.g. geographical location.
When an entity is first registered with a presence management system server 10 there is a substantial amount of data capture required. In order that the work-load of the entity is reduced reliance is put on default information and a type of "wizard" is used to help the user enter the required information quickly and easily. Later, the data can be subsequently modified by the watched party or entity. These functions are carried out by the profile management system 56.
For example, in the case of an entity representing a human user the interaction provided by the "wizard" data capture process can be as follows:
The user chooses from a number of life-styles, "office-worker", "travelling-salesman" or "executive". Each life-style being represented by a template with default values.
Some parts of the configuration are complicated and these are initially masked from the user until they press the "advanced options" button.
The multiple access communications network 11 is made up of one or more communications networks, such as a public' switched telephone network 52 and a wireless communications network 51. An event gateway, specific to the type of communications network, is provided for each communications network or each technology, such as mobile telephones and copper wire telephones. Note that the Internet is logically a federation of several access networks and a core data network using a common Internet Protocol (IP) substrate.
Event gateways receive raw data from the access networks, pre-process this and pass it onto the raw presence manager via one or more event inputs 16. Examples of these events are keyboard activity on a terminal, movement between cells in a cellular communications network and change of VLR (Visitor Location Register) and off-hook events in a PSTN. Other events include use of the "last offered incoming call" service on a public switched telephone network, details from calendar services and the opening of a Palm Pilot 7 (trade mark) lid. Event gateways produce an authenticated, time ordered series of location data events that have been filtered and homogenised. That is, only information about users being tracked by this presence system is passed to the raw presence manager. This is achieved by using a filter in the event gateway or in the events input 16. Also, events are presented to the raw presence manager in a technology neutral format (all the idiosyncrasies of different access network technology are hidden by the event gateway as far as possible).
In the case of Instant Message notification of an awaiting e-mail, for example, the decision on whether the client is "on-line" to a particular e-mail notification may be a function of the sender, the size and possibly of keywords within the subject of the e-mail. Rather than the subscriber presenting this, second order, information at the point of sending the Instant Message, the initial subscription may capture all the information upon which the reachability decision is made. What might have been a single subscription by an e-mail notification service regarding a single client may then be replaced by a set of fine-grained subscriptions each regarding that client's willingness to receive a certain e-mail notification.
In this case, IMPP is extended to carry additional parameters. This may be in the form of an XML string. For example, in the case of an e-mail notification service, the IMPP subscribe also contains <subscription-detail type="IM" reftype="e-mail" from="fred">. One possibility is that the presence system responds to such a subscription by asking for further information. e.g.. if the rules asserted by the client cover the "to" field of the e-mail (i.e. who else has/will receive it) then the response is to refuse the subscription giving an appropriate reason.
The presence management system 10 also comprises an exposed presence manager 58 as illustrated in Figure 5. As described above "exposed presence" is a view of an entity's presence that is exposed to a watcher. It is derived according to rules defined for that entity and in this way, an entity exhibits different exposed presences to different audiences. The function of the exposed presence manager 58 is to "decide" what information to make available to watching parties on the basis of rules 15 and other criteria set by watched parties or defined as defaults.
In the case that there is a change in the information available, for example, because new information arrives via an event gateway 53 , then the exposed presence manager 58 is triggered. The exposed presence manager then checks for active subscriptions to the watched party in respect of whom the new information has arrived. If some active subscriptions are present, the exposed presence manager 58 consults the rules 15 and determines what (if any) information to make available to the watching parties who have active subscriptions.
The presence management system also comprises a connection manager 59 in some examples. In the cases that the presence management system itself forwards communication requests direct to watched parties, the connection manager 59 provides this forwarding facility using connect gateways 54. At least one connect gateway 54 is provided for each type of access network. Part of the function of the connection manager 59 is to "decide" which connect gateway 54 should be used for a particular communication request and to manage changes between connect gateways 54 according to the communication requirements. As well as this the connection manager determines which access media is used for a given interaction in the event that more than one access medium is available and suitable.
The presence management system also comprises a raw presence manager 55. The raw presence manager 55 obtains and stores information from the event gateways 53 and processes this information to form a "context presence" for each watched party. A plurality of default contexts are defined such as "at home", "at work desk", "travelling" and information received from the event gateways 53 together with other watched party information is used to determine which context applies for a given watched party at a particular time. Rules are used to aid this determination process. For example, rules for mapping location indicators onto presence contexts are pre-defined. Watched parties are also able to enter their own rules and presence contexts for use by the raw presence manager 55.
In one embodiment a computer program stored on a computer readable medium is provided. Figure 6 is a flow diagram of the method implemented by the computer program. This computer program is adapted to control a presence management system such that connections are managed between watching parties and watched parties. This presence management system is suitable for use in a multiple access communications network, and said computer program is arranged to control said presence management system such that:-
(i) a store of watched party information is created (box 701 of Figure 6);
(ii) a set of rules about connection criteria are formed (box 702 of Figure 6);
(iii) information about events that occur in said multiple access communications network is received in use via an input (box 703 of Figure 6); and
(iv) connection requests are received from watchers in use; and on receipt of a request from a watching party for a connection with a watched party, information about whether that watched party currently permits connections to be established with it is provided, said information being determined on the basis of said store, said rules and said input information about events; and wherein at least one party is a service (box 704 of Figure 6).
Figure 7 is a flow diagram of another example of such a method implemented by a computer program. In this case, watched parties first register 801 with a presence management system and input information 802 which is used to form rules. This information is about the watched party's communication criteria and preferences, such as what types of terminal he or she uses and which modes of communication are preferred at different times of the day.
A presence management system (10) suitable for use in a multiple access communications network (11) by watching parties (12) and watched parties (13), said presence management system (10) comprising:-
(i) first input means arranged to access a store of watched party information (14);
(iv) third input means arranged to receive connection requests from watching parties (12); characterised by said presence management system (10) being arranged to provide an anonymous forwarding address responsive to a request from a watching party (12) for a connection with a watched party (13), the forwarding address for that watched party (13) being provided under controlled conditions so that the watching party (12) cannot gain access to the watched party's direct connection address and the presence management system being further arranged to maintain operable the forwarding address for limited number of connection attempts, said controlled conditions being determined on the basis of said watched party information, said information about connection criteria and said input information about events.
A presence management system as claimed in claim 1 wherein said watching party (12) can only contact said watched party (13) using said anonymous forwarding address for a limited time.
A presence management system (10) as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the request from the watching party (12) is forwarded to the connection address provided, in such a way that the watching party (12) has no access to that connection address.
A presence management system (10) as claimed in any preceding claim wherein at least one of the parties (12,13) is an automated service.
A presence management system (10) as claimed in claim 4 wherein said automated service is a watching party (12).
A presence management system (10) as claimed in claim 4 wherein said automated service is a watched party (13).
A presence management system (10) as claimed in any preceding claim wherein at least one of said parties (12,13) comprises a plurality of individuals.
A presence management system (10) as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said presence management system is further arranged such that on receiving information about events that occur in said multiple access communications network (11) the presence management system (10) provides information about the geographical location of a watched party (13) in use.
A presence management system (10) as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said presence management system (10) is further arranged such that on receiving information about events that occur in said multiple access communications network (11) the presence management system (10) provides information about the current activity of a watched party (13).
A presence management system (10) as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said presence management system (10) is arranged to provide information about types of connection that a watched party (13) is able to participate in.
A presence management system (10) as claimed in any preceding claim which further comprises a monitor for monitoring said received information about events and wherein said presence management system (10) is arranged to provide information about a change in the availability of a watched party (13).
A presence management system (10) as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said store of watched party information (14) comprises watched party connection preferences.
A presence management system (10) as claimed in any preceding claim and wherein a plurality of said events are initiated by watched parties (13) and comprise a communication via said multiple access network (11).
(iii) information about events that occur in said multiple access communications network (11) is received via input means; and
A multiple access communications network (11) comprising a presence management system (10), as defined in any of claims 1-13.
(iii) receiving information about events that occur in said multiple access communications network (11); and
(iv) receiving a request from a watching party (12) for a connection with a watched party (13), characterised by providing an anonymous forwarding address responsive to the said request for a connection with a watched party, the forwarding address being provided under controlled conditions, so that the watching party (12) cannot gain access to the watched party's direct connection address and the presence management system being further arranged to maintain operable the forwarding address for a limited number of connection attempts, said controlled conditions being determined on the basis of said watched party information, said information about connection criteria and said input information about events.
EP00979753A 1999-12-14 2000-11-27 Anonymity in a presence management system Expired - Fee Related EP1240756B1 (en)
US461654 1999-12-14
US09/461,654 US6853634B1 (en) 1999-12-14 1999-12-14 Anonymity in a presence management system
PCT/GB2000/004512 WO2001045343A2 (en) 1999-12-14 2000-11-27 Anonymity in a presence management system
EP1240756A2 EP1240756A2 (en) 2002-09-18
EP1240756B1 true EP1240756B1 (en) 2008-03-26
EP00979753A Expired - Fee Related EP1240756B1 (en) 1999-12-14 2000-11-27 Anonymity in a presence management system
AU (1) AU1714501A (en)
DE (1) DE60038460T2 (en)
WO (1) WO2001045343A2 (en)
AU6324001A (en) * 2000-05-19 2001-12-03 Ztango Inc A system and user interface for managing users and services over a wireless communications network
1999-12-14 US US09/461,654 patent/US6853634B1/en not_active Expired - Fee Related
2000-11-27 AU AU17145/01A patent/AU1714501A/en not_active Abandoned
2000-11-27 JP JP2001546111A patent/JP4668503B2/en not_active Expired - Fee Related
2000-11-27 DE DE60038460T patent/DE60038460T2/en active Active
2000-11-27 WO PCT/GB2000/004512 patent/WO2001045343A2/en active IP Right Grant
2000-11-27 EP EP00979753A patent/EP1240756B1/en not_active Expired - Fee Related
2000-11-27 CA CA2393571A patent/CA2393571C/en not_active Expired - Fee Related
WO2001045343A3 (en) 2002-05-10
DE60038460D1 (en) 2008-05-08
US6853634B1 (en) 2005-02-08
EP1240756A2 (en) 2002-09-18
CA2393571A1 (en) 2001-06-21
WO2001045343A2 (en) 2001-06-21
CA2393571C (en) 2010-06-01
JP4668503B2 (en) 2011-04-13
JP2003517777A (en) 2003-05-27
AU1714501A (en) 2001-06-25
DE60038460T2 (en) 2008-07-31
Inventor name: PARSONS, ERIC W.
Inventor name: STRINGER, DAVID ROBERT
Inventor name: DAVIES, ELWYN B.
Inventor name: ARMSTRONG, STEVEN M.
Inventor name: HARKER, ANDREW NEWTON
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