AU2003100686A4 - Method and Software Product for Creating Mobile Device Messages - Google Patents

Description

AUSTRALIA

PATENTS ACT 1990 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION INNOVATION PATENT METHOD AND SOFTWARE PRODUCT FOR CREATING MOBILE DEVICE MESSAGES The following statement is a full description of this invention including the best method of performing it known to me: METHOD AND SOFTWARE PRODUCT FOR CREATING MOBILE DEVICE MESSAGES FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention is concerned with a method for conveniently creating SMS, EMS, MMS or like messages and relaying them to mobile devices such as mobile phones.

BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION Over the past decade the use and penetration of wireless computational devices such as mobile or cellular phones and related technology, such as PDA's (personal digital assistants) has increased dramatically. Apart from providing voice communications, modern cell phones support SMS (short message services) by which a message of up to 160 characters of text may be entered, by means of a sender phone's keypad, or by a PC keyboard via the Internet, and transmitted over a telephone network for display on a receiver phone's display screen. Selected devices also support EMS (Enhanced Messaging Service) and MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service). Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS) adds new powerful functionality to the well-known SMS standard and is supported by the major network operators and mobile phone manufacturers. With it, mobile device users can incorporate pictures, animations, sound and formatted text into SMS text messaging.

An MMS message can contain formatted text, graphics, data, animations, images, audio clips, voice transmissions and video sequences. Sending digital postcards and Microsoft PowerPoint style presentations is expected to be among the most popular user applications of MMS.

For the purposes of the following description and appended claims, the terms SMS, EMS, MMS and similar messaging services will be collectively referred to as xMS.

xMS has many advantages when compared to voice communication. It permits a record of communication to be stored and retrieved in textual or multimedia format. This reduces the error of miscommunication that often occurs with voice telephony. It also permits confirmation of instructions from the sender to the recipient. xMS is a useful tool for communication when voice communication may not be convenient, for example where the sender or recipient is in a meeting.

At present, in order to create an xMS message the content of the message is usually entered via the small keypad of a mobile phone. Alternatively, services for generating xMS messages by means of a personal computer are now available.

According to one of these services text messages, with an associated addressee's mobile phone number, may be sent from a custom content sender application, running on an Internet connected personal computer, to an xMS web-server. The xMS web-server provides a gateway to a telephone network in order to deliver the message to the addressed mobile phone where it is displayed in standard xMS format.

Both of these methods of generating xMS messages have their drawbacks.

Entering messages using the small keypads that are typically provided on mobile devices is usually uncomfortable and may require considerable dexterity. Where the message is in an Asian language such as Thai or Chinese it may be particularly tedious to generate a message using a mobile device keypad. Alternatively, entering content into a custom content sender application may require the tedious cutting and pasting of text and files from a user's favourite document editor application.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a means by which an xMS message may be conveniently created and transmitted to a remote wireless device and which addresses the problems discussed above.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a method for transmitting content of an electronic document from a selected portion of a user interface of a computational device to a remote wireless device, the method including the steps of: generating a graphical user printer driver interface configured for entry of parameters identifying the remote wireless device; processing the electronic document to generate an xMS message including the content; and transmitting the xMS message to the remote wireless device identified by said parameters.

The step of transmitting the xMS message to the remote wireless device may include sending said message and the parameters via a computer network, such as the Internet, to a gateway to a mobile phone network.

Alternatively, the step of transmitting the xMS message to the remote wireless device may include sending the xMS message by means of a mobile phone or wireless modem in data communication with the computational device.

The method may further include the step of maintaining an account for each user of the gateway. In that case the graphical user printer driver interface is configured for entry of a user code.

The method may also include the step of debiting an account corresponding to a user code associated with an xMS message passed by the gateway.

According to a further aspect of the present invention there is provided a computer software product stored on a computer readable medium for execution by a computational device, the computer software product including: instructions for generating a graphical user printer driver interface for a selected electronic document, the printer driver interface configured for entry of parameters identifying a remote wireless device; instructions for processing the electronic document to format content in said document into an xMS message; and instructions for transmitting the xMS message to the remote wireless device identified by said parameters.

Preferably the instructions for generating a graphical user printer driver interface include a printer interface dynamic link library component.

Preferably the instructions for processing the electronic document include a printer graphics dynamic link library component.

The printer graphics dynamic link library component preferably includes instructions for parsing the electronic document to obtain the text.

Other preferred features of the invention will be apparent from the detailed description which will make reference to a number of Figures as follows: BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Figure 1 schematically depicts a preferred embodiment of the invention.

Figure 2 schematically depicts a first possible route for delivering a message from a computer to a remote wireless device according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 3 schematically depicts a second possible route for delivering a message from a computer to a remote wireless device according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENT In a preferred embodiment the present invention is implemented as a software product containing instructions for execution by a computational device, for example a personal computer or laptop computer. With reference to Figure 1, the software product includes instructions for two client side Dynamic Link Library (DLL) components, being a printer interface DLL 5 and a print graphics DLL 7. The software may be provided on any convenient computer readable medium, for example an optical or magnetic disk. Typically the printer interface DLL and the print graphics DLL operate in the WindowsTM operating system architecture as schematically depicted in Figure 1.

It is usual for a printer driver's printer interface DLL, which executes in user mode, to be configured to export a user interface 9 to the printer's configuration options. Providing this interface involves creating property sheets for the printer.

Applications (such as the print folder) display the interface by calling Win32 functions exported by the print spooler, and the spooler, in turn, calls functions defined by the printer interface DLL. According to the preferred embodiment of the present invention there is provided an xMS Print interface DLL 5 configured to display a user interface 9 for entry of destination mobile phone number for the xMS message and any other parameters required from the user for transmission of the xMS message.

Printer graphics DLL 7 is used to provide DDI drawing functions to handle drawing operations that must be performed in a device-specific manner. In the preferred embodiment of the present invention printer graphics DDL 7 includes instructions to parse the content out of an electronic document created in an application 11 that is familiar to the user. The content may be only text, as would be the case for an SMS message, text and graphics as would be the case for an EMS message or text, graphics and possibly audio as would be the case for an MMS message.

Application 11 might, for example, be MS-Word for SMS message creation or MS-PowerPoint for MMS message creation. The document is transmitted to xMS print driver 3 via operating system print processor 13. After printer graphics DLL 7 has parsed the content of the document from application 11 it sends it as an xMS message to the destination mobile phone number in one of at least two ways which are schematically depicted in Figures 2 and 3.

The parsed text from the document may consist in part or whole of non- English language characters. Any non-English language characters are considered as text included in the message and sent in an appropriate format that will allow their display on a receiving device.

Referring now to Figure 2, for users with an Internet connection, the xMS message is sent from computer 2, via Internet 4 to a server 6 that provides a gateway to a mobile phone network 8 and thence to destination wireless device Server 6 may also be configured to maintain an account for each client that uses it.

In that case each user will have an identity code or account code registered with the gateway and the xMS print interface DLL 5 will be configured for entry of the code which is subsequently transmitted, with the xMS message, to the gateway. Upon the gateway receiving the code the account identified by the code is appropriately debited.

With reference to Figure 3, for users without an Internet connection, the message is sent from computer 2 to the destination wireless device 10 by sending the message through a mobile phone, or GSM modem 12, in data communication with computer 2. The message is then sent through the telecommunication's network 14 that supports the SIM in the attached mobile phone or GSM modem 12.

As previously explained, according to a preferred embodiment of the invention, a user of computer 2 will typically create an electronic document, containing content including text, graphics and possibly audio of a message, by means of a standard application 11 that he/she is familiar with. For example, in the case of SMS messages the message may be created in MS Word whereas in the case of an MMS message MS PowerPoint might be used since it accommodates multimedia content.

The electronic document will typically be displayed in a selected portion, such as a window, of a graphical user interface generated by computer 2. In order for the message to be sent as an xMS message to a desired remote wireless device, such as a mobile phone, the user selects the print option from the text editor's operation menu. Upon selecting the print option the user is presented with a printer dialogue box. The user then selects the "xMS message" option from the list of available printers that are displayed and presses an "OK" button on the printer dialogue box thereby calling the xMS print interface DLL. The user is then presented with a dialogue box that requests the phone number of the device that the user wishes to send an SMS message to. The dialogue box may also request that the user enters an account code.

The user then clicks "OK" again, which action subsequently calls the print graphics DLL. The print graphics DLL contains instructions to parse the document to extract the content and format it as an xMS message. The xMS message is then transmitted to the destination wireless device according to either of the two routes described in relation to Figures 2 and 3.

Although the present invention has been described in terms of preferred embodiments, it is not intended that the invention be limited to these embodiments.

Equivalent methods, structures, arrangements, processes, steps and other modifications apparent to those skilled in the art will fall within the scope of the invention described herein.

Claims (4)

1. A method for transmitting content of an electronic document from a selected portion of a user interface of a computational device to a remote wireless device, the method including the steps of: generating a graphical user printer driver interface configured for entry of parameters identifying the remote wireless device; processing the electronic document to generate an xMS message including the content; and transmitting the xMS message to the wireless device identified by said parameters.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the step of transmitting the xMS message to the remote wireless device may include sending said message and the parameters via a computer network to a gateway to a mobile phone network.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the step of transmitting the xMS message to the remote wireless device includes sending the xMS message by means of a mobile phone or wireless modem in data communication with the computational device.

4. A computer software product stored on a computer readable medium for execution by a computational device, the computer software product including: instructions for generating a graphical user printer driver interface for a selected electronic document, the printer driver interface configured for entry of parameters identifying a remote wireless device; instructions for processing the electronic document to format content in said document into an xMS message; and instructions for transmitting the xMS message to the remote wireless device identified by said parameters. 8 A method substantially as described herein with reference to the Figures. Dated this 20th Day of August 2003 WIRELESS APPLICATIONS PTY LTD By my attorneys Eagar Newcomb Buck Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys