Patent Application
20120265812
The invention concerns communication between communication terminal users, and more specifically, the devices and methods that are made available to these users to reduce the time necessary to establish communication with at least one contact.
It should be noted that the invention may involve any communication terminal type, whether wired or wireless.
Additionally, “contact” shall mean a user of at least one communication terminal (associated with a communication identifier, such as for example a telephone number, email address, or Internet address) who may have already been (and preferably was) in communication with another user, and who is potentially part of a personal and/or professional directory used by the latter. It should be noted that a contact may be known by a name, user name, number, or communication identifier.
Furthermore, the term “communication” refers to any type of connection established between a caller's (communication) terminal and at least one receiver's (communication) terminal. Consequently, it may for example be a traditional telephone call, potentially via Internet, a text message (SMS or MMS), or an instant message (or “chat” or IM), email, or video message.
As any person skilled in the art knows, several solutions have been proposed to reduce the time necessary to establish communication between a terminal user and at least one contact. Thus, a user or network administrator can associate a communication identifier with a terminal key (“shortcut”). It is also possible to create a list of contacts (“redial list”) containing the last N contacts with whom a user established incoming or outgoing communication, potentially in chronological order. It is also possible to create a list (or “call log”) of all communication identifiers from terminals that established incoming or outgoing communication with a user, potentially related to the number of communications established with each contact. It is also possible to create a restricted list of friends or relatives (or “buddy list”) containing the communication identifiers for terminals used by friends or relatives, potentially as part of a specific application (instant messaging (or IM) for example). It is also possible to create a personal and/or professional (or corporate) directory, potentially accessible via a server.
All of the solutions presented hereinabove allow users to communicate more rapidly with certain other users. However, either these solutions only offer a simple list (potentially limited) in which searching for a contact can be relatively time consuming, or they require a customised adaptation by each user according to his or her search criteria.
As no known solution is fully satisfactory, the goal of the invention is therefore to improve the situation.
For this purpose, the invention proposes a device designed to process communication data for at least one user, and consisting of:
The device of the invention may comprise other characteristics, which may be taken separately or in combination, in particular:
The invention a so proposes network equipment intended to be connected to a communication network to which user communication terminals may be connected and equipped with a processing device of the type described hereinabove.
The invention also proposes a user communication terminal designed to be connected to a communication network, and equipped with a processing device of the type described hereinabove.
The invention also proposes a method for processing communication data from at least one user consisting of the following steps:
The method of the invention may comprise other characteristics, which may be taken separately or in combination, in particular:
Other characteristics and advantages of the invention will become apparent upon examining the detailed description below and the attached drawings, wherein:
The drawings may serve not only to complete the invention, but also to contribute to defining it, if need be.
The purpose of the invention is to propose a method and a related device (D) designed to process communication data from at least one user and at least one communication terminal (T).
In what follows, it is assumed by way of a non-limiting example that the users have wireless (or cellular) communication terminals (T) able to connect to a wireless communication network (RC) (mobile or cellular). However, the invention is not limited to this type of communication terminal. In fact, it refers to any type of communication terminal capable of connecting to a wired or wireless communication network. Consequently, the communication terminals (T) may be, for example, desktop or laptop computers, wire-line or mobile telephones, potentially video, or personal digital assistants (or “PDAs”).
The invention proposes implementing method for processing user communication data. For example, this method may be implemented with a processing device D according to the invention.
It should be noted that in the non-limiting example shown, the processing device D is part of the network equipment, such as a services server S (here connected to the network RC, but which may be coupled to the internet or may be a part of the latter). Therefore, it operates centrally for many users. However, a processing device D. according to the invention, may be part of a user's (communication) terminal T, and in this case, it operates in a distributed manner for said terminal T.
Consequently, a processing device O. according to the invention, may be constructed in the form of software (or computer) modules, or electronic circuits, or a combination of electronic circuits and software modules.
The inventive method comprises three main steps.
A first main step (i) consists of analysing (at least some) incoming and/or outgoing communication data from at least one user communication terminal T (here selected from many terminals or designated by a request) so as to determine selected information for these communications and other users, called “contacts”, involved in at least one of these communications, It should be noted that “contact” shall mean a user of at least one communication terminal that is associated with a communication identifier, to such as for example a telephone number or an email address, or an Internet address, who may have already been (and preferably was) in communication with another user, and who is potentially part of a personal and/or professional directory used by the latter. A contact may be known by a name, user name, number, or communication identifier.
It should also be noted that “communication” refers to a link established between a caller's (communication) terminal and at least one receiver's (communication) terminal, even if the receiver did not answer. Consequently, it may for example be a traditional telephone call, potentially via Internet, a text message (SMS or MMS), or an instant message (or “chat” or IM), an email, or a video message.
This first main step (i) may, for example, be implemented by the means of analysis MA on the device D.
It should be noted that not all of a given user's communications need be analysed. In fact, only certain selected ones may be analysed. Therefore, it is possible for example to decide to analyse only communications of a single type, such as for example only telephone calls, or only emails, or only instant messages (chats), potentially independently of the time when these communications took place. It is also possible to decide to analyse only communications established during at least one selected time slot, potentially independently of the respective communication types.
In the case of centralised operation, the analysis takes place among the communication data for the user in question that are stored on a call server. The latter may potentially be located in the same place as the services server S. It may also be part of the services server S. Therefore the means of analysis MA on the device D are configured to access the call server and the communication data for the users that it stores.
In the case of distributed operation, the analysis takes place either locally among the communication data for the user that are stored on the terminal T that he or she is
using, or among the communication data for the user that are stored on his or her various terminals.
The communication information for a user may be communication identifiers for contact terminals and/or contact names or user names and/or communication dates (and times) and/or communication types, for example.
It should be noted that the communication information for a user, determined by the means of analysis MA, may potentially be stored together with a user ID (potentially his or her (or one of his or her) communication identifiers) on the memory means MS on the device D, so that they can be reused locally at any time. These memory means MS may be present in any form known to a person skilled in the art, and in particular in the form of memory or a database.
It should be noted that the means of analysis MA may potentially be configured to automatically analyse the incoming and/or outgoing communication data for a given user within a selected period. In the opposite case, the analyses are carried out by request from a user terminal T or a network administrator. For example, it is possible to select a 24 hour (one day) or 12 hour (hail day) period.
A second main step (ii) of the method according to the invention consists in assigning a weight to each communication involving the user according to the information determined for this communication in the first step (i) and at least one selected rule. For example, this second main step (ii) may be implemented by the processing means MT on the device D that are coupled to the means of analysis MA and/or to potential memory means MS.
As indicated hereinabove, the weights are assigned by the processing means MT according to at least one rule selected by the given user or by a network administrator, potentially according to the user's profile.
For example, these rules can be selected from at least:
For example, one may decide that a contact belonging to a user directory is more important than a contact not belonging to a directory for this user,
It should be noted that when a contact is part of a user directory stored on that user's terminal T or in a database (that stores directories for users of the service provided by the invention), this terminal T or the database must be called.
Additionally, it should be noted that when a first user has not communicated with a second user, the latter may however be a contact of the first user. In this case, it is possible for example to assign the second user (here a contact) a weight of zero (0).
It should be understood that the more important a communication is considered to be, the greater the weight assigned to it.
By way of a purely illustrative example, at least some of the following complex rules may be applied:
It should be noted that the rules used may potentially vary from one user to another, for example according to their user profiles and/or to a context taken into consideration and/or to a choice the user makes (potentially according to his or her needs and/or habits).
A third main step (iii) of the method according to the invention consists of creating a contact data file in which each contact is assigned an overall weight that is equal to the sum of the weights assigned to each communication involving him or her and the user in question.
In other words, one takes a contact for a given user, and then one determines each communication involving both this user and this contact, and to which a weight has been assigned, then one sums the weights that have been respectively assigned to the communications thus determined to obtain the overall weight associated with this contact.
For example, this third main step (iii) may be implemented by the processing means MT of the device D.
The contact data files that are created may be shown in at least two formats. Thus, for example, they may be shown in the form of contact lists in which the contacts are ordered by the overall weights assigned to them.
In a variation, the contact data files may for example be shown in the form of clouds of contacts. More specifically, a cloud of contacts for a given user consists of a selected graphical representation of this user's contacts. Therefore these contacts are positioned in an area shaped according to their global weights and in alphabetic order and/or by the age of their last communication with the user and/or by the reply status of their last communication with the user and/or by the direction of their last communication with the user in question.
This method of presentation to a user may for example be a translation of a Web 2.0 application called a keyword cloud into the telco domain.
For example, contacts may be positioned within a rectangular or (square) area. But, the area may be shown in other shapes, geometrical or not.
Of course, some of the aforementioned display criteria for a contact cloud may not be used and/or other display criteria may be used. Thus, for example, it is possible to envision not taking into account the age of the most recent communication with a contact. In general, it is possible to envision that the user may select the presentation format most suitable for him or her.
It should be noted that it is possible to envision that the name of a contact displayed in a window F within an ordered list or a cloud, should allow access to all or some of the information known about this contact when selected. For example, this information is stored in a user database not shown but accessible on device D. Therefore, selecting a name from a window F displayed on the screen of terminal T could for example display a sub-window with the name of the contact, his or her fixed-line telephone number, his or her mobile telephone number, and his or her email address or addresses, as well as one or more icons representing the type of terminal T on which one wishes to reach the selected contact and/or the type of communication that one wishes to make with the selected contact. Selecting an icon would then automatically establish the corresponding communication.
It should also be noted that the processing means MT may be tasked with dynamically updating the (pre-existing) contact data file for a given user according to that user's incoming and/or outgoing communications.
It should also be noted that in the centralised case, the user must send a request to the server S with one of his or her terminals T, so as to be able to download the contact data file that was created specifically for him or her onto this terminal T.
The invention is not limited to the embodiments of the processing device, communication terminal, and processing method described hereinabove, which are only given by way of example; rather, it encompasses all variants that a person skilled in the art may envision within the framework of the claims below.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09305682.8 | Jul 2009 | EP | regional |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/EP2010/059186 | 6/29/2010 | WO | 00 | 6/11/2012 |
