Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of integration of telecommunications networks and the internet, with particular reference to systems and methods for archiving messages and for their consultation via a website. Background Art

The SMS service (Short Message Service) allows subscribers to send and receive short alphanumeric messages (up to 160 characters on GSM networks) between subscribers that are enabled for the service. The service is supported by GSM networks and by other mobile telecommunications networks. It is well known that cellular telecommunications networks comprise Short Message Service Centres (SMSCs), by means of which the SMS messages are sent over the network from a sending terminal to a receiving terminal. The SMSCs interrogate the Home Location Register (HLR) to obtain the routing information necessary for transmitting the message to the destination terminal. If the sender and the receiver are subscribers to different network operators then the message will be routed from the sender's SMSC to the receiver's SMSC. In addition, if the receiver at a given moment cannot receive the message, for example because he/she has his/her terminal switched off or is outside network coverage, or because the memory for storing messages is full, then the message is temporarily stored in the receiver's SMSC and is automatically sent when the terminal is once again active, reachable and available. In this sense we can say that an SMSC operates according to a "store and forward" protocol. Note, however, that the storage is only temporary and that the temporary archive cannot be accessed or exploited by the subscribers: the stored SMS messages can be accessed only by the SMSC itself and, once they have been sent to the recipient, or if sending is not possible for a determined time interval, they are deleted. Since its introduction the SMS service has met with ever-increasing popularity and currently it is the most-used application in the world, with a user base of 2.4 billion people and a traffic of around 2500 billion messages in 2008 alone. Although its original use was as a system for interpersonal communication, the service has evolved to allow interaction with automatic systems, for example to order products or services, to download digital content, to receive various types of notifications and/or to take part in competitions and surveys. In parallel with this evolution, SMS messages have increasingly come to contain non-volatile information that subscribers want to find at a later time after their delivery, such as telephone numbers, bank account numbers, receipts, and other information of an administrative, logistics or sentimental nature.

In addition, recently messaging services experienced significant technological innovations, which make it possible to transmit not only text messages, i.e. SMS messages, but also messages containing multimedia objects, such as images, audio, video, and formatted text.

The growing popularity of messaging services and the increased importance of their content has generated new storage and management requirements. Traditional mobile messaging services do not have systems for long-term storage of the messages exchanged: no node of the network keeps a copy of the messages, which are only ever saved in the subscribers' mobile devices.

The memory of these devices is limited however, and even in latest- generation telephones often it is necessary to delete messages in order to allow new incoming messages to be downloaded. The messages can even be deleted by mistake, or they can be lost if the subscriber loses or changes his/her telephone, and the messages can no longer be retrieved.

In addition, mobile devices in general are not equipped with sophisticated message management systems, which allow cataloguing of the stored messages according to personalised criteria, or operations to filter and search the messages.

In order to meet those needs, many hardware and software devices have been developed with the aim of expanding the possibilities for storing and managing the data saved in cellular phones. Some of the first solutions offered were devices for synchronising the subscriber's cellular phone with a personal computer: Nokia PC Suite, for example, enables the subscriber to transfer data, including SMS messages, from his/her cellular phone to his/her personal computer by means of a data cable or a wireless connection. The saved data can be viewed and organised on the personal computer and also deleted from it, and if desired these modifications can be synchronised back to the cellular device.

This solution, while more satisfactory than storing data on the subscriber's cellular phone only, presents the drawback that synchronising and saving the data is done by the subscriber: if the subscriber forgets to do it, then it is always possible that some data which has not yet been saved could be lost. In addition, given that the storage medium is the subscriber's personal computer, all the risks inherent in storing data locally are present, such as accidental deletion, data corruption, exposure to viruses, and hardware faults. According to statistics, each year over 40% of computer users lose files irreversibly.

To overcome these drawbacks, recently various online services have been offered for backing up SMS messages. The zyb.com service, for example, makes it possible for a subscriber to back up data from his/her cellular phone' to a dedicated memory area on a remote server, and to perform the synchronisation at regular intervals. This solution has the advantage of storing the data on secure servers, which are provided with sophisticated backup systems and which have almost unlimited memory capacity. In addition these servers allow a subscriber to access his/her data from any workstation connected to the Internet and, if desired, to share the data with other users. This solution requires, however, that a GPRS connection be enabled and it therefore cannot be accessed by all types of cellular phones and subscriptions, and in addition it is not possible to know whether the sending and, vice-versa, the reception of messages has succeeded or not, as well as their content. An alternative that allows online backup and which does not require a

GPRS connection is to directly forward the messages: services, such as treasuremytext.com assign the subscriber a predefined number, which the subscriber can use to forward the messages that he/she wishes to save. The forwarded messages are thus stored online and they can be accessed via a website. This solution has the advantage of simplicity and ease of use but, like the previous solutions, except more so, it presents the risks inherent in the lack of automatisms: the fact that the user has to explicitly forward every single message exposes the solution to the risk of losing data. In addition the saving procedure is long and boring, because it has to be repeated for each individual SMS.

The above examples show that services for storing and managing SMS messages constitute a very vital area in constant evolution, but as of today solutions that are wholly satisfactory are still lacking. There is therefore a very pressing need in the art to develop a service for storing and managing SMS messages that overcomes the limitations of the prior art outlined above by providing improved performance levels over the state of the art, by combining the advantages of online storage with automatic and transparent management for the subscriber. Disclosure of the invention The aim of the present invention is to provide a system and method for storing messages that works automatically, without the need for explicit operations to be performed by the subscriber.

Within this aim, an object of the present invention is to provide a new storage technique that is straightforward to apply and implement, and which can easily be integrated with existing software and hardware devices: in particular, a solution that does not require modifications either to the existing telecommunications infrastructure or to subscribers' cellular devices and which can be used even by first-generation cellular devices.

This aim, as well as this and other objects which will become better evident from the description of the present invention, are achieved by a system for automatically storing messages exchanged by means of a telephone message service comprising at least one message center which belongs to a cellular network and which is adapted to send such messages from a sender to a recipient; first means for storing such messages, such means being connected to such telephone network; second storage means and means for managing such messages, such means being connected to a computer network; first and second means for transferring such messages from such first storage means to such second storage means. Conveniently, the first transfer means comprise means for conversion and forwarding of messages from the first storage means to the second storage means, or the second transfer means comprise means for conversion and copying of messages from such first storage means for storage on such second storage means.

Preferably, the system also comprises first selection means, in cooperation with the message center and such first transfer means, of a plurality of such messages to be transferred to such second storage means, and/or second selection means, in cooperation with such second transfer means and such second storage means, of a plurality of messages to be displayed by such message management means. Advantageously, the message management means comprise a web server, and preferably such means also comprise means for forwarding a stored message to a plurality of contacts and/or groups of contacts and, for each contact, to a plurality of cellular numbers and/or e-mail addresses.

The intended aim and objects are also achieved by a method for automatically storing messages exchanged by means of a telephone message service comprising the steps that consist in receiving, from a message center, which belongs to a cellular network, at least one message, and transferring, by way of transfer means, the message to a computer network. Brief description of the drawings Further characteristics and advantages of the invention will be made clearer from the description of a preferred, but not exclusive, embodiment of the system and method for archiving messages, illustrated by way of a non- limiting example in the accompanying drawings, wherein:

Figure 1 is a block diagram of the architecture of the system according to the present invention;

Figure 2 is a flow diagram that illustrates an embodiment of the archiving method according to the present invention;

Figure 3 is a table that shows an embodiment of a portion of the lookup table of a subscriber's contacts according to the present invention; Figure 4 is a flow diagram that shows an embodiment of a method for sending multiple SMS messages and email messages according to the present invention. Ways of carrying out the invention

An examplary architecture of the system for archiving SMS messages according to the present invention is illustrated in the block diagram in Figure 1.

The figure shows a mobile telephony network 110, for example the

GSM network, which is accessed by the mobile terminals 130, 130' and

130". The mobile terminals 130, 130' and 130" can be any device that is adapted to communicate over the cellular network 110 and which is enabled for the service of sending and receiving SMS messages.

The mobile telephony network 110 comprises a plurality of message centers 140: the message center is an element of a mobile telephony network that is adapted to deliver messages, which can be text (SMS) messages, or multimedia (MMS) messages. In a preferred embodiment the message center is implemented by means of an SMSC. The SMSC, which can be collected to other SMSCs, makes it possible to send and receive messages to and from other subscribers of the network. Thus the SMSC manages, for example, the messages sent by a cellular phone and the messages that the same cellular phone has to receive, i.e. the messages sent and received by the cellular phone. The SMSC interrogates the Home Location Register (HLR, not shown in the figure) to obtain the routing information, and then it forwards the message to the mobile terminal of the recipient or, for a recipient who is a subscriber to another network operator, to the SMSC of the operator of the recipient's network. If the recipient's terminal is not currently available to receive the message, the message is temporarily stored in the SMSC until the recipient becomes available or until a determined time interval has elapsed, after which the message is deleted.

The figure also shows a computer network 120, for example the Internet, and a plurality of devices for accessing such network, for example a personal computer, a laptop or a palmtop, 150, 150' and 150". The computer network 120 comprises an application server 160 according to the invention and storage means 170 according to the invention.

Each message center according to the present invention comprises storage means 141, transfer means 142 and optionally selection means 143.

The storage means 141 comprise an area for storing the messages to be transferred to the computer network 120, both to be sent by a cellular phone and to be received, and, if the message center 140 comprises selection means 143, an area for association between the identification details of the subscribers signed up to the service according to the present invention in the mobile telephony network 110 and their identification details in the service itself, for example in the form of lookup tables.

The transfer means 142 can be implemented by means of a known service, for example an SMS gateway, which handles the protocol conversions necessary to send the messages from the mobile telephony network 110 to the computer network 120, or, if the copying and transfer of messages is handled by the computer network 120, an interface module to such network.

The selection means 143 comprise a module, preferably software, which for every message handled by the message center checks, by consulting the lookup tables, if the sender and/or the recipient are signed up to the service, and if the result of such check is positive it forwards the message or makes it available for transfer to the computer network 120, by way of the transfer means 142. The messages forwarded by the transfer means 142 are sent to the application server 160, and are then handled by the transfer means 161. The transfer means 161 can be implemented by means of a known service, for example an SMS gateway, which handles the protocol conversions necessary to copy the messages from the mobile telephony network 110 to the computer network 120, or, if the transfer of messages is handled by the mobile telephony network 110, an interface module to such network.

Moreover the transfer means 161 store the messages that have been copied or received in the storage means 170. The stored messages are preferably made available to the subscribers by means of a web-based interface, accessible by devices for accessing the network 150, 150' and 150", such interface being hosted on the web server 162. The web server 162 preferably comprises one or more websites that allow the subscribers to carry out the most common activities for this type of service, i.e. registration and authentication, consultation of stored messages, and management of such messages by means of operations to filter and search, organisation into folders, and deletion.

With reference to figure 2, here below the method for storing SMS messages according to the present invention is shown in detail.

The method begins at step 210, in which the message center 140 receives a text message sent from a mobile terminal 130 or from another message center 140. At step 215 the message is. temporarily stored in the storage means 141, then at step 220 the message center 140, in particular the selection means 143, consults the appropriate lookup tables in the storage means 141 to determine whether the sender of the message is enabled for the service according to the present invention. In an alternative embodiment this check could be omitted and delegated to the selection means 163: if the result of the check is positive then at step 225 the transfer means 142 forward a copy of the message to the application server 160, or, if the transfer is handled by the transfer means 161, the transfer means 142 make a copy of the message available to the transfer means 161; if the result of the check is negative then control passes directly to step 245, in which the message center 140, in particular the selection means 143, consults the appropriate lookup tables in the storage means 141 to determine whether the recipient of the message is enabled for the service according to the present invention. Just like, at step 220, in an alternative embodiment this check could be omitted and delegated to the selection means 163: if the result is positive, then at step 250 the transfer means 142 forward the message, or make a copy of the message available, to the application server 160; if the result is negative, then control passes directly to step 255, in which the message center 140 checks to see if the recipient's mobile terminal can be reached. If the terminal can be reached, then at step 270 the message center 140 sends the message to such terminal, then at step 275 it deletes the message from the storage means 141 and at step 278 it sends a notification of the delivery of the message to the application server 160 by way of the transfer means 142. Alternatively, the transfer means 161 could periodically consult the notifications of sending, for example by means of polling techniques; then at step 280 the method terminates. If at step 255 the message centre 140 determines that the mobile terminal cannot be reached, then at step 260 it remains in a wait state for a defined interval of time, and at step 265 it checks to see if the predetermined interval of time for which the message can be stored temporarily has expired: if it has expired, control passes to step 275, otherwise control returns to step 255 to check if the recipient has become reachable. If at step 275 the message is deleted as a result of its being impossible to send and upon expiry of the timeout, the notification sent at step 278 will include this information. It will be noted therefore that the messages deleted by the SMSC because they are not delivered or not received in the maximum time allotted, can still be saved permanently in the subscriber's archive, together with information about the fact that the message will no longer be delivered or received owing to the elapsing of the time out. Otherwise this information, after being deleted by the SMSC, would be irremediably lost without being able to know the content of the message or the successful or unsuccessful outcome of the reception or sending. But by means of this method the subscriber can know which messages have not been sent, including those which now never will be sent, and those which have not been delivered to that subscriber, including those which now never will be delivered, and can even view their content even after they have been deleted by the SMSC. This is an advantage that makes it possible to be certain of the success of exchange of information in both directions, or of the lack of such success, which is important for notifications or in any case in general.

Figure 3 shows a possible embodiment of a portion of a lookup table of a subscriber's contacts according to the invention. Depending on the chosen selection mechanism, upstream or downstream, this table can be stored in the storage means 141 or in the storage means 170. In the table each contact that belongs to a subscriber signed up to the service is identified by means of an identification code, with which a plurality of cellular numbers, a plurality of email addresses and possibly a group code are associated. The person skilled in the art will immediately understand that this information can be integrated with other information and can be stored in various alternative ways, for example by putting the table into normal form and subdividing it into a plurality of tables.

The information contained in this table can be used to manage the sending of multiple messages and/or multiple emails by means of the application server 160, as will now be explained with reference to figure 4. Figure 4 shows a possible embodiment of a method for sending multiple messages and/or multiple emails from the application server 160 caused by the sending of a single message by a subscriber signed up to the service according to the invention by means of the mobile telephony network. The method begins at step 410, in which the application server 160 receives a message that was sent at step 225 or 250. At step 415 the application server 160 stores the received message, then at step 420 it checks if the sender of the message (rather than the recipient) is signed up to the service: if not, then control passes to step 550 and the method terminates. If yes, then the application server 160 proceeds, if necessary, to parse a string of codes sent together with the message: such string contains the indication of any groups of contacts and/or single contacts to whom to forward the message, and for each group or contact whether the message is to be forwarded via the messaging channel, via the email channel or both; in addition for each channel the string of codes indicates whether the message is to be forwarded to all the addresses or only to the principal address. All the information relating to the addresses can be found by the application server 160 by means of the lookup table shown in figure 3. At step 425 the application server 160 initialises two lists, a list of cellular numbers and a list of email addresses, initially both empty. At step 430 the application server 160 checks to see if the command string contains a group code: if it does not, control passes to step 475, otherwise the application server considers the first group code and at step 435 it checks to see if it contains a code for forwarding via SMS: if it does not, then control passes to step 455, otherwise at step 440 the application server checks whether the code for forwarding via SMS comprises an indication to forward to all the cellular numbers of each member of the group. If it does, then at step 445 the application server adds all the cellular numbers of each member of the group to the list of cellular numbers, and if it does not, then at step 450 the application server adds the principal cellular number of each member of the group to the list of cellular numbers. In both cases control then passes to step 455. From there steps similar to those from 435 to 450 are executed, based on the presence of a code for forwarding via email: in particular, at step 455 the application server 160 checks to see if the current group code contains a code for forwarding via email: if it does not, then control returns to step 430 to examine any subsequent group code, otherwise at step 460 the application server 160 checks whether the code for forwarding via email comprises an indication to forward to all the email addresses of each member of the group. If it does, then at step 465 the application server adds all the email addresses of each member of the group to the list of email addresses, and if it does not, then at step 470 the application server adds the principal email address of each member of the group to the list of email addresses. In both cases control then returns to step 430 to examine any subsequent group code.

If at step 430 the application server 160 determines that all the group codes present in the command string have been examined, then control passes to step 475, at which the application server 160 checks to see if the command string contains a subscriber code: if it does not, control passes to step 520, otherwise the application server considers the first subscriber code and at step 480 it checks to see if it contains a code for forwarding via SMS: if it does not, then control passes to step 500, otherwise at step 485 the application server checks whether the code for forwarding via SMS comprises an indication to forward to all the cellular numbers of the subscriber. If it does, then at step 490 the application server adds all the cellular numbers of the subscriber to the list of cellular numbers, and if it does not, then at step 495 the application server adds the principal cellular number of the subscriber to the list of cellular numbers. In both cases control then passes to step 500. From there steps similar to those from 480 to 495 are executed, based on the presence of a code for forwarding via email: in particular, at step 500 the application server 160 checks to see if the current subscriber code contains a code for forwarding via email: if it does not, then control returns to step 475 to examine any subsequent subscriber code, otherwise at step 505 the application server 160 checks whether the code for forwarding via email comprises an indication to forward to all the email addresses of the subscriber. If it does, then at step 510 the application server adds all the email addresses of the subscriber to the list of email addresses, and if it does not, then at step 515 the application server adds the principal email address of the subscriber to the list of email addresses. In both cases control then returns to step 475 to examine any subsequent subscriber code.

If at step 475 the application server 160 determines that all the subscriber codes present in the command string have been examined, then control passes to step 520, at which the application server 160 checks to see if the list of cellular numbers built up in the previous steps contains at least one number: if it does not, then control passes to step 535, otherwise at step 525 the application server 160 sends the SMS message to the numbers present in the list and at step 530 it updates the storage means 170 accordingly, then at step 535 the application server 160 checks to see if the list of email addresses built up in the previous steps contains at least one address: if it does not, then control passes to step 550 and the method terminates, otherwise at step 540 the application server 160 sends the SMS message via email to the addresses present in the list and at step 545 it updates the storage means 170 accordingly. Finally at step 550 the method terminates.

The person skilled in the art will immediately understand that a method similar to that shown in figure 4 can be defined for managing received messages, i.e. a method for sending multiple messages and/or multiple emails from the application server 160 caused by receiving a single message from a subscriber signed up to the service according to the invention by means of the mobile telephony network. In this case the message will not contain any command string and the routing information will be inferred from the preferences configured by the subscriber for dealing with received messages and stored in suitable routing tables. That is to say, the subscriber will be able to specify to which cellular numbers and/or email addresses to forward a message delivered to a determined cellular number or email address. With a mechanism of this type, it is possible to implement communication to multiple or single contacts also when receiving, with the same method as that described for sending.

The implementation methods described above can be implemented in many different ways and the present invention is not limited to any one specific implementation. It has thus been shown that the present invention achieves the intended aim and objects. In particular, it has been seen how the system and method, thus conceived, overcome the qualitative limits of the prior art owing to the fact that they enable the secure and permanent storage of all messages sent and received, as well as all undelivered and unreceived messages, by a subscriber in a manner that is entirely automatic and transparent to such subscriber.

The present invention also allows the sender and the recipient to display, by means of the web interface, messages not yet sent/received over the mobile telephony network, and also messages never received/delivered owing to the fact that the recipient has been unreachable for an extended period of time, together with the indication of the status of such messages (received, not yet received, not delivered etc.).

The options for forwarding messages to groups or lists of subscribers allow the possibility of sending the same message, sent and/or received, simultaneously to a plurality of subscribers, simultaneously by means of a telephone and email messaging service, and, because the sending operations are performed by means of a web interface, the possibility of benefiting from low forwarding costs.

It has also been shown how the invention is practical to implement, since it does not require installation of any hardware or software device in the subscribers' mobile terminals but only simple devices are needed to be integrated with the infrastructure of the existing mobile telephony network.

Clearly, many modifications will be clear and can be promptly carried out by the person skilled in the art without departing from the scope of protection of the appended claims.

In particular, the present invention is considered as protecting all the known solutions within the scope of messaging systems, i.e. the conversion of messages to email messages and vice versa, the sending of messages via a web interface, the delayed sending of a plurality of messages to a plurality of contacts, the specification of automatic replies and the like.

Moreover the messages could be made available to subscribers with alternative methods of use to that of a website, for example by means of cellular phones or palmtop devices, with WAP access or with dedicated software, or even with direct access to the storage means that implements a sort of "virtual memory" of the cellular devices.

A system according to the present invention thus enables the complete integration of mobile telephony and email systems, and has the advantage of concentrating, in a single infrastructure, a plurality of communication channels and storage channels while at the same time guaranteeing that all the information exchanged can be conveyed to all the desired channels, for example, but not limited to, multiple cellular numbers or multiple email addresses, or to a central point, for example a particular cellular number or email address, or for example the website itself, thus enabling a multiple and/or concentrated guarantee of communication both in sending and in receiving. This mechanism is particularly useful for assuring the receipt and storage of notifications of payment, such as credit cards, train tickets, operator services and the like, for implementing solutions for the certification of telephone and email messaging, and as such could be adopted advantageously by entities such as banks, companies, professionals and public administrations, in time coming to replace registered post, couriers and/or faxes, and for developing payments by cellular phone. It is similarly evident that the inventive concept underlying the present invention is quite separate from the actual implementation of the software modules, which can be developed in any language and on any hardware platform, or as firmware to be applied to modern electronic devices.

Thus, the scope of protection of the claims shall not be limited by the illustrations or by the preferred embodiments given in the description in the form of examples, but rather the claims shall encompass all the features of patentable novelty that reside in the present invention, including all the features that would be treated as equivalents by the person skilled in the art.

The disclosures in Italian Patent Application No. MI2009A000985 from which this application claims priority are incorporated herein by reference.

Where technical features mentioned in any claim are followed by reference signs, those reference signs have been included for the sole purpose of increasing the intelligibility of the claims and accordingly, such reference signs do not have any limiting effect on the interpretation of each element identified by way of example by such reference signs.