Patent ID: 8327024

Claim:
A system for interoperability between a first network communicating according to a first protocol associated with a first user and a second network communicating according to a second protocol associated with a second user, the system comprising: a Home Location Register (HLR) Proxy for intercepting SRI_For_SM requests sent from a first Short Message Service Center (SMSC) in the first network intended for a HLR in the second network and returning to the SMSC a response having address information for a second SMSC in the second network; a Message Switching Center (MSC) Proxy associated with the address information returned to the SMSC and configured for receiving a first communication from the first SMSC, wherein the first communication has an associated first identity of the first user and first identity of the second user based on the first network; an adapter configured to normalize the first communication received from the first network into a network-independent format; a bridge comprising: an application layer comprising logic to select the second network based on presence information associated with the second user, to determine a second communication valid for the second network and to determine a second identity for the first user and a second identity for the second user based on the selected second network; and a component layer having services with associated functionality and accessible to the application layer, wherein the bridge is configured to inspect the normalized first communication and to generate a second communication for the second network using one or more components based on the normalized first communication; and one or more messaging emulators for sending the second communication to a gateway in the second network, wherein the one or more messaging emulators comprise: an Internet Protocol (IP) messaging emulator configured to send the second communication to a user in an IP network based on address information returned by the HLR proxy and receive an IP message from an address in the IP network, wherein the adapter is configured to normalize the IP message into a network-independent format and the bridge is configured to inspect the normalized IP message and generate a third communication for the first network using one or more components based on the normalized IP message and send the third communication to the first network, and an SMSC emulator configured to send a request to a HLR in the first network, receive a response from the HLR in the first network, and forward the third communication to a current Message Switching Center (MSC) in the first network.