Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US7974877?dq=3657699
Timestamp: 2014-07-25 03:51:59
Document Index: 671984510

Matched Legal Cases: ['Application No. 067859603', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 2008', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 2005', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 200680024080', 'Application No. 200680018489']

Patent US7974877 - Sending and receiving electronic business cards - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign in<nobr>Advanced Patent Search</nobr>PatentsGraphical visual representations of electronic business cards may be generated from associated contact file information. Electronic business cards may be sent and received over digital media. Contacts information associated with received electronic business cards may be used for adding to or updating...http://www.google.com/patents/US7974877?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US7974877 - Sending and receiving electronic business cardsAdvanced Patent SearchPublication numberUS7974877 B2Publication typeGrantApplication numberUS 11/159,837Publication dateJul 5, 2011Filing dateJun 23, 2005Priority dateJun 23, 2005Also published asCN101185094A, CN101185094B, EP1897046A2, EP1897046A4, US20060293903, WO2007001634A2, WO2007001634A3Publication number11159837, 159837, US 7974877 B2, US 7974877B2, US-B2-7974877, US7974877 B2, US7974877B2InventorsRajesh Ramanathan, Peter Allenspach, Radu Bacioiu, Liang-Yu Chi, David Michael Gray, Victor Erwin RomanoOriginal AssigneeMicrosoft CorporationExport CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatent Citations (113), Non-Patent Citations (96), Referenced by (5), Classifications (21), Legal Events (1) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetSending and receiving electronic business cardsUS 7974877 B2Abstract Graphical visual representations of electronic business cards may be generated from associated contact file information. Electronic business cards may be sent and received over digital media. Contacts information associated with received electronic business cards may be used for adding to or updating information contained in a recipient's electronic contact files.
a first portion of the second prescribed layout is preset for all members of the organization and a second portion of the prescribed layout may be customized by the user. Description
BACKGROUND A common method of exchanging personal and/or business contact information from one person to another is through the exchange of physical printed business cards. Often, a given person may give and/or receive tens or even hundreds of printed business cards over the course of a given period of time. Upon receipt of a printed business card, the card recipient often desires to store the data from the card via an electronic contacts application. Unfortunately, storing the data via the electronic contacts application typically requires entry of the data by hand. Similarly, if the recipient already has contact information associated with a received business card, the recipient has no automated means for updating the contact information with new information received on the business card. Electronic card readers have been developed for storing a scanned image of a printed business card, but such readers do not allow for storage of individual typed data fields of a given card, for example, name, telephone number, address, and the like, or metadata that provides information about which of such data fields are included in the card.
Embodiments of the present invention provide for generating electronic business cards from electronic contact information that may be rendered and displayed as single electronic business cards or as a collection of electronic business cards. According to this embodiment, all electronic contact files stored in an electronic mail application contacts data repository have one associated �electronic business card�, which is essentially a graphical presentation of the data in a business card format. Electronic business cards may be automatically generated by the electronic mail application according to one or more default templates, or electronic business cards may be customized manually by a user with unique logos, pictures, or other custom formatting properties. Electronic business cards may be structured according to a data structuring language, such as the Extensible Markup Language, and an associated schema file. Structured and schematized electronic business cards may be consumed by any application functionally capable of consuming data structured according to the data structuring language applied to the electronic business card.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION Embodiments of the present invention are directed to generating electronic business cards and sending and receiving electronic business cards over digital media. According to embodiments of the present invention, electronic business cards are digital visual representations of an electronic contact file that is laid out in a printed business card format, backed by schematized contact data. Electronic business cards may be generated from contact information from one or more default templates followed by user customization, if desired. Electronic business cards may be automatically generated upon rendering of electronic contacts data including sending an automatically generated business card through electronic mail messages. Electronic business cards and associated images may be sent to and received by recipients over various types of digital media.
In one embodiment, the application 106 may comprise many types of programs, such as a word processing application program, a spreadsheet application, a desktop publishing, and the like. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the application program 106 comprises a multiple-functionality software application for providing a user calendaring functionality, electronic mail functionality, contacts storage and management functionality, electronic notes functionality, electronic journal functionality and the like. Some of the individual program modules comprising such a multiple-functionality program 106 include an electronic mail program, a contacts application 120, a calendaring module, a tasks module, a notes module and a journal module. An example of such a multiple-functionality program 106 is OUTLOOK� manufactured by MICROSOFT CORPORATION.
Referring now to FIG. 2, a graphical user interface 200 of an electronic contacts application 120 is presented. As should be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the user interface 200, illustrated in FIG. 2, and all other user interfaces, illustrated herein, are for purposes of example only and are not limiting of the variety of different user interface layouts and designs that may be used according to embodiments of the present invention. The user interface 200 includes software application functionality buttons along an upper edge, including the �contacts� button 215. Selection of one of the functionality buttons provides associated software functionality and associated user interfaces, such as electronic mail functionality, electronic calendar functionality, electronic contacts functionality, electronic tasks functionality, etc.
The user interface illustrated in FIG. 2 is associated with the functionality of an electronic contacts application 120 such as is found in OUTLOOK� manufactured by MICROSOFT CORPORATION. In an upper portion of the user interface 200 is a user interface component 220 (hereafter �UI component�) in which is presented a variety of selectable functionalities associated with the application in use, for example, the contacts application 120. On the left-hand side of the user interface, a navigation pane 210 is presented with which a user may navigate to different data and functionality associated with the application in use. For example, according to the electronic contacts application 120 and user interface 200, illustrated in FIG. 2, the navigation pane 210 displays an electronic contacts repository that includes one or more �contacts folders�, for example, �all contacts,� �business associates,� �international,� etc. According to embodiments of the present invention, the user may categorize his/her contact information according to one or more contacts folders for enhanced management of his/her electronic contacts repository. As described herein, an electronic contacts repository may contain one or more individual contact files organized into one or more storage folders for navigation by a user. Each contact file may contain contact data elements, for example, name, address, telephone number, facsimile number, electronic mail address, company or personal URL, logos, images, and the like, for a given person or institution. According to one embodiment, the contact data elements may be stored as schematized data according to an associated schema for the data elements.
The example electronic business cards 230, 235, illustrated in FIG. 2, are digital visual representations of electronic business cards stored in the user's �business associates� contacts folder. As should be appreciated, selection of a different contacts folder from the navigation pane 210 causes the presentation of electronic business cards associated with the selected contacts folder. According to embodiments, presentation of contact information associated with the illustrated electronic business cards may be selectively presented in a traditional contact file format where each data item, for example, name, title, address, telephone number, email address, URL etc., is presented in individual data files associated with a various contacts. However, presentation of the contacts information for individual contacts as individual electronic business cards is advantageous because the information is provided in a visually pleasing and potentially unique manner for each contact. Because each electronic business card may be backed by schematized data, electronic business cards may carry and may be rendered according to a variety of styles and formats and unique properties, such as font type, font size, font color, background color, background pattern etc, as well as, images, such as company logos, and contact photographs with associated formatting, such as alpha blending, transparency, fit to edge and other image transformations, which may be applied to individual electronic business cards.
Referring back to FIG. 3, according to embodiments of the present invention, electronic business cards may be structured according to a data structuring language, such as the self-describing data structuring language, Extensible Markup Language (XML). In FIG. 3, an XML data file 340 is illustrated as being associated with the electronic business card 320. According to an embodiment of the invention, each structural element (e.g., XML elements) applied to the electronic business card may be linked to corresponding data fields in associated contact files to allow generation of electronic business cards by populating the cards with data from associated contact files. For example, the structural elements in the data file 340 are linked to a contact file for the subject �Ann Smith.� When the electronic business card 320 is generated for the contact file for �Ann Smith� data from appropriate fields in the �Ann Smith� contact file is extracted from the contact file and is used to generate the electronic business card according to the structural framework established for the electronic business card according to a structured data file, such as an XML data file 340. As should be appreciated, other data structuring languages, such as HTML and the vCard standard, may be utilized for generation of the electronic business cards described herein.
<text font=�Tahoma; bold� size=�14� property=�fullname� />
<text font=�Tahoma; bold� size=�8� property=�businessphone�
color=�red�>
<label font=�Tahoma; bold� size=8 color=�blue�
charset=�1033�>Home</label>
According to embodiments of the present invention, electronic business cards may be sent to other users as objects inserted in an electronic mail message. Referring to FIG. 5, sending an electronic business card from an electronic contacts application user interface 200 is illustrated. As illustrated in FIG. 5, the user has selected an �electronic business cards� function for populating the display area of the user interface 200 with electronic business cards maintained by the user. According to embodiments, in order to edit or send a given electronic business card, for example, the electronic business card 530, the user selects and highlights the desired electronic business card. Once an electronic business card 530 has been selected, the user may take a number of actions on the selected electronic business card, including editing the electronic business card, deleting the electronic business card, moving the electronic business card to a different folder, etc.
According to this embodiment, if the user desires to forward (send) the associated contact information to a destination address as an electronic business card, as illustrated in FIG. 5, a drop-down �actions� menu is selected, and a �forward as electronic business card� function is selected for sending the selected electronic business card to an intended recipient. As should be appreciated, more than one electronic business card may be sent. That is, a number of contacts data items may be selected and forwarded or sent as electronic business cards during any given transmission.
Referring now to FIG. 6, in response to selecting the �forward as electronic business card� function, an electronic mail message user interface 600 is displayed, and the selected electronic business card is rendered and displayed in the body of the electronic mail message 600. As described above, the electronic mail application responsible for the electronic mail message 600 renders and displays the electronic business card 530 in the message 600 based on the image 380 and schematized structure 340 applied to the electronic business card 530. Once the electronic business card 530 is inserted into the message 600, the sender may populate the message 600 with an appropriate electronic mail destination address of the recipient and transmit the message along with the inserted electronic business card.
Referring now to FIG. 7, sending one or more electronic business cards via an electronic contacts dialog is illustrated. An electronic contacts dialog 710 is displayed showing detailed contact information for a given contact file. If the user desires to send the contact information contained in the contacts dialog 710 to a recipient, the drop-down �actions� menu 720 is deployed in the contacts dialog 710. Selection of the �send business card� function 730 causes an electronic message 600 to be populated with an associated electronic business card, as illustrated above in FIG. 6. If no electronic business card has been previously generated and stored for the associated contact information, the electronic contacts application will automatically generate an electronic business card from a default template, as described above with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4. The automatically generated electronic business card will then be inserted into the electronic mail message 600, as illustrated and described above with reference to FIG. 6. The sending party may then populate the electronic mail message with an appropriate electronic mail destination address and transmit the message along with the electronic business card.
In addition, a �send full contact� function 733 is shown in the menu 720. As should be appreciated, a given electronic business card may include only a subset of the contacts data elements contained in a given contact file, which typically matches what is visible in the business card design. Using the �send full contact� function 733, all information in a given contact file may be sent to a recipient. As should be understood, using the �send full contact� function may include sending an electronic business card associated with the selected contact file along with other information contained in the contact file that is not contained in the electronic business card.
Referring now to FIG. 8, sending one or more electronic business cards via an electronic mail application is illustrated. An electronic mail message 810 is illustrated for sending electronic mail to a recipient. Electronic mail may be entered by the sender as typed textual information, or objects of various types, for example, pictures, symbols, electronic signatures, and the like, may be inserted. According to embodiments of the invention, electronic business cards may be inserted into the body of the electronic mail message for sending to a destination address. From the drop-down �Insert� menu, a �business card� function 820 is selected for inserting an electronic business card into the body of the electronic mail message 810. According to embodiments of the present invention, selection of the business card function 820 causes a pop-out menu which allows selection of the primary user business card 840 or business cards that were most recently exchanged by the user, or allows selection of other business cards stored by the user via the user's electronic contacts application 120, as described above.
Selection of the �other business cards� control may cause the display of a collection of selectable business cards, as illustrated above in FIG. 2, from which the user may select one or more desired cards for inserting into an electronic mail message. Additionally, selection of either the primary user business card function 840 or the �other business cards� function 850 may allow a user to send a standard organization/company business card generated by her organization/company for providing her personal contact information via an organization/company business card or for sending organization/company business cards of other employees or persons having organization/company business cards available through the �other business cards� function.
According to other embodiments of the invention, in addition to the primary user electronic business card or �other business cards� category, other business cards may be presented in the pop-up menu 840. For example, a �most recently sent� list of electronic business cards may be created for listing a number of electronic business cards sent within a prescribed period of time. For example, the pop-out menu illustrated in FIG. 8 may be populated with the names of other selectable categories such as �most recently sent.� As should be appreciated, selection of a control from the pop out menu associated with a category, such as �most recently sent,� may cause a list of contacts associated with the �most recently sent� category from which the user may select a desired electronic business card for sending via an electronic mail message. As should be appreciated, other electronic business card categories may be automatically generated or manually generated by the user such as �most recently received,� �friends and relatives,� �work associates,� �school associates,� and the like.
Referring to FIG. 10, according to one embodiment, if the electronic mail sender selects the �other business cards� function 850, an �insert electronic business card� dialog 1000 may be displayed. The dialog 1000 provides the electronic mail sender access to different electronic business card repositories, for example, the sender's personal electronic contacts repository. In the upper portion of the dialog 1005 is a listing of contacts information associated with individual contacts stored by the electronic mail sender. Upon highlighting an individual contact, a preview of an associated electronic business card 1010 is displayed in the lower half of the dialog 1000. The business card preview 1010 serves as a preview of the electronic business card that will be transmitted to an intended recipient if it is selected for sending to the recipient. According to embodiments of the invention more than one electronic business card may be sent to a receiving party. That is, the sending party may select a number of electronic business cards from her contacts repository for sending to various recipients. One or more cards may be selected from a dialog 1000, illustrated in FIG. 10, or a number of cards may be selected from a display of electronic business card images, as illustrated in FIG. 2 above.
According to an embodiment of the invention, electronic business cards may be inserted into an electronic mail message by substituting entered textual contact information with an associated electronic business card. According to this embodiment, the electronic mail application is equipped with a �smart tags� module for detecting textual contact information entered into an electronic mail message and for associating the textual contact information with an electronic business card stored in the sender's electronic contacts repository. According to this embodiment, as textual information is entered into a message entry area of the user interface 810, portions of the entered text, for example, words, sentences, paragraphs, or a prescribed number of entered characters, are sent to a recognizer module. According to this embodiment, the recognizer module is a software module, such as a dynamically-linked library (DLL), having sufficient computer-executable instructions for comparing received text with a list or database of information for matching entries.
If the user selects the highlighted word or number string, a pop-up dialog may be presented to offer the insertion of an electronic business card for the matching contact file. For example, if the user types �the following is the contact information for my friend, John Smith,� the name �John Smith� may be recognized as associated with a contact file for a person named �John Smith.� In accordance with this embodiment, the name �John Smith� will be recognized and highlighted. Upon selection of the highlighted name, the pop-up dialog may offer a selectable action for inserting an electronic business card for �John Smith.� If the user selects the insertion of the electronic business card for John Smith, then the electronic business card will be dynamically inserted into the electronic mail message entry area. Thus, the user does not have to type the contact information manually.
According to this embodiment, when an electronic business card is sent over digital media, the electronic business card will include a vCard file (.VCF file), which is essentially a text file. The vCard file will also include a display definition of the electronic business card as a vCard schema extension, for example, in the form �X-MS-OL-DESIGN.� According to one embodiment, the display definition is a portion of binary information that contains information about a display of the card. For example, the display definition may contain information about what properties are included in the business card, such as name and telephone number, and what label to use with these properties (such as displaying �home� before the home phone number). The display definition may include information about the order of such properties and what formatting is to be applied to those properties, for example, bold, italics, highlighting, font size and color, etc. Other information may include what picture or image to use, for example, a photograph or logo image with the associated formatting of the image such as alpha blending, transparency, fit to edge and other image transformations. Additional information may include where to place an image in the card, for example, top, bottom, right, left, etc. and what size or area in the card an image should occupy. Other additional information may include attributes such as background color, background pattern, background image, etc. with associated image transformation effects.
BEGIN: VCARD VERSION: 2.1 N: Doe; John FN: John Doe TITLE: Program Manager, ABC Corporation EMAIL; PREF; INTERNET; doej@.abc.com PHOTO; TYPE = JPEG; ENCODING = BASE64: [image data] X-MS-OL-DESIGN; ENCODING = BASE64: [display definition or card design data] REV: 1234567 UID: [unique identifier used to distinguish contact in receiving end] END: VCARD According to this embodiment, the image that is sent includes a special tag (e.g., a word processing application bookmark tag) that is wrapped around the image that indicates the vCard attachment name for the electronic business card. According to one embodiment, a destination application will receive data of the following form:
<A name=�John Doe�> <IMG SRC= ... /> </A> This tag is essentially an HTML �A� tag with a name but no source identifier. When the destination application receives such a tag or bookmark string, it will check to see if a vCard file with the same name as the �A� tag is attached. If the vCard file is attached, then the receiving application may enable functionality for updating or adding the electronic business card to an electronic contacts repository, as described herein. That is, when a user selects the rendered image, a menu or other user interface may be provided to allow data contained in the attached data file to be used for updating contact files, as described herein. If the card data file is not included as an attachment, then the receiving or destination application need not enable such functionality, and any image associated with the received data may be rendered as any received image would be rendered by the receiving application.
As illustrated in FIG. 14, the electronic mail signature user interface 1400 is launched for adding a selected email signature to outgoing electronic mail messages. In addition to selecting a given electronic mail signature, the user may select the �business card� control 1415 for choosing a personal electronic business card 1420 or other electronic business cards 1425 for inclusion in the electronic mail signature. Once a given electronic business card is selected, a thumbnail representation 1410 of the selected electronic business card is populated in the electronic mail signature user interface 1400. According to one embodiment, the thumbnail representation 1410 may be a dynamically created bitmap image of the associated electronic business card. When the outgoing electronic mail message is sent, the receiving party will be presented with an electronic business card along with any other electronic mail signature content prescribed by the sender. That is, the electronic signature at the end of the email body received by the receiving party will include the thumbnail electronic business card 1410 along with other signature information sent by the sender. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the behaviors and methods applicable to business cards inserted as part of signatures 1410 are the same as the behaviors and methods applicable to business cards that are inserted directly into an electronic mail message bodies. That is, schematized data associated with electronic business cards received via an electronic signature may be used for updating contact information and for saving an image of the received electronic business cards, as described above. For example, the embodiments of vCard attachments and associated JPEG images also apply to business cards attached to electronic signatures.
As illustrated in FIG. 16, when an electronic business card is received, the recipient may selectively add the electronic business card and/or the underlying contact information to the recipient's own electronic contacts repository. As illustrated in FIG. 16, upon selection of an �add to contacts� control 1610, a user interface 1600 is deployed for allowing the recipient to add the received electronic business card to her contacts repository. As described above with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4, the received electronic business card is structured according to a data structuring language, and the structure is applied to the underlying data according to an associated schema file. According to the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 16, the contacts information associated with the electronic business card 1530 is automatically populated into the user interface 1600 to show the recipient what will be saved to his/her contacts repository for the associated contact if she accepts the data. If the recipient already has a contact file for the received electronic business card, duplicative information or updated information is processed as described below for FIGS. 16-18.
According to another embodiment of the invention, the received electronic business card may be edited by the receiving user. If edits to the received electronic business card are desired, an edit control, such as the example �Edit Card� control 1620, may be selected for launching a card editing user interface 1800, illustrated in FIG. 18. Referring to FIG. 18, the user interface 1800 allows a receiving user to edit the layout of data elements in the card and allows the user to add or remove data elements to or from the card. An image 1805 of the received electronic business card is displayed in an upper right-hand corner of the card. A layout edit control 1810 allows placement of an image 1830 contained in the card in different locations, for example, right, left, top, bottom, upper right, upper left, and so on. The displayed size and alignment of the image 1830 may also be edited. If the receiving user desires to add or remove individual contact data elements, for example, name, job title, business phone, etc., the contact data element fields 1825 may be selected for adding or removing individual contact data elements to or from the card. Once all desired changes are made to the received card, the edited card may be stored for subsequent use as described herein. In addition, according to another aspect of this embodiment, changes made to the card, for example, additions to contact data elements, may be saved in a receiving user's contacts data associated with the card.
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DayanGraphic-based electronic signature management system and method* Cited by examinerClassifications U.S. Classification705/14.55, 705/14.56, 705/14.53, 705/14.49, 705/14.72, 705/14.73International ClassificationG06F170/60Cooperative ClassificationG06Q30/0276, G06Q30/0277, G06Q30/0258, G06Q30/0255, G06Q10/10, G06Q30/0251, G06Q30/0257European ClassificationG06Q10/10, G06Q30/0255, G06Q30/0257, G06Q30/0258, G06Q30/0277, G06Q30/0276, G06Q30/0251Legal EventsDateCodeEventDescriptionAug 8, 2005ASAssignmentOwner name: MICROSOFT CORPORATION, WASHINGTONFree format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:RAMANATHAN, RAJESH;ALLENSPACH, PETER;BACIOIU, RADU;AND OTHERS;REEL/FRAME:016617/0379;SIGNING DATES FROM 20050623 TO 20050707Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:RAMANATHAN, RAJESH;ALLENSPACH, PETER;BACIOIU, RADU;AND OTHERS;SIGNING DATES FROM 20050623 TO 20050707;REEL/FRAME:016617/0379RotateOriginal ImageGoogle Home - Sitemap - USPTO Bulk Downloads - Privacy Policy - Terms of Service - About Google Patents - Send FeedbackData provided by IFI CLAIMS Patent Services©2012 Google