Presence Server for Mobile Meeting Availability
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional real-time communications systems face challenges in determining the on-line presence and availability status of mobile device users, making it difficult to convene successful on-line meetings or teleconferences involving mobile devices due to lack of definitive network indications of device power status and coverage.
Innovation Solution
A real-time communications system that includes client sub-systems, a real-time messaging server, a presence server, and a database server, allowing on-line presence and availability-based meeting convening through SMS, voice, or data connectivity, with features like stand-in substitution and user group management, enabling text, audio, video, and data communication between mobile and non-mobile devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If conventional real-time communications systems determine on-line presence based on mobile device network coverage and power status, then the system can identify potential meeting participants, but it cannot reliably determine whether the mobile device user is actually available to participate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary presence server that acts as a mediator between the mobile device and the instant messaging system. This server receives presence information from the mobile device via SMS messages and translates it into standardized presence status that the instant messaging system can understand and act upon, resolving the unreliability of direct availability determination
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the conventional mechanical/technical approach of determining presence through network connectivity and power status with a communication-based approach using SMS messages. The mobile device user explicitly communicates their presence status through text messages, substituting indirect technical indicators with direct communicative intent
2Reliability
If the system requires all desired meeting participants to be on-line and available before convening a meeting, then meeting success rate increases, but meeting convening time and flexibility decrease
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies partial action by allowing meetings to be convened when a subset of desired participants are available, rather than requiring all participants. The system can proceed with available participants while optionally waiting for others, balancing meeting success rate with convening time flexibility
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces dynamic meeting convening where the system can adapt its waiting behavior based on availability conditions. The meeting can be convened immediately if enough participants are available, or delayed if the system is configured to wait for specific participants, making the convening time flexible rather than fixed
3Stability of the object's composition
If mobile telephones must be powered-on and within network coverage to be considered on-line, then basic connectivity is maintained, but definitive indication of user availability to external systems is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The presence server acts as an intermediary that collects availability information from mobile devices through SMS messages and makes this information available to external instant messaging systems. This intermediary layer preserves the stable connectivity requirement while adding the missing availability information layer
Data Source
AI summary
A real-time communications system that is capable of convening an on-line meeting or teleconference involving text, audio, video, and/or data between multiple users of mobile and non-mobile devices. A mobile telephone is operative to receive an invitation to join an on-line meeting with at least one user of another mobile or non-mobile device. If the mobile telephone network can provide an indication of whether the mobile telephone is powered-on and within the coverage area of the mobile telephone network, a real-time messaging server employs this information to determine the on-line presence of the mobile telephone user before transmitting the meeting invitation. Otherwise, the real-time messaging server assumes that the mobile telephone user is present and on-line. The mobile telephone user may indicate his or her desire to join the on-line meeting by transmitting an SMS message to the real-time messaging server in response to the meeting invitation, after which the real-time messaging system may convene the on-line meeting between the multiple users.