Background of the invention When offices and residences are planned and built today, electronic communication is an issue that has become as important to the architecture of a building as other self-evident facilities like water supply, electrical installations and heating. Intelli- gent homes and various smart ways of living are well-known slogans for residential service systems, which systems are meant to make everyday lives of people easier and run more smoothly. A key functionality of most residential service systems is to provide an organising tool for programs and scheduled activities of each family member, and also if possible help scheduling and co-ordinating activities of a whole family or group of busy people.

Another feature in modern residences of today is to share certain facilities that are used only occasionally. One example of this phenomenon may be realised in build- ing societies or in a tenants'association of a block of flats utilising common re- sources like for example a laundry-room, a carriage intended mainly for removing furniture, a guest apartment such as an extra bedroom for accommodating visitors and a shared meeting-place. Those few examples of common resources shall be

booked in advance by anyone living in the block of flats and the accessibility of course depends on the current booking situation.

However, likely to occur is that the booking of a common resource may have to be cancelled due to other interfering activities or sudden and unexpected occasions. For practical reasons, maybe reasons as simple as that the booking schedule has been placed too far away in the basement of the block, a cancellation may not be made.

The accessibility for other potential users is thus limited. Such an unmotivated res- ervation constitutes a source of irritation to other people, and usage of the common resource is not at all optimised.

Hence, there is a need for a system and method for reservation of common resources in a residential computer network in order to improve accessibility and utilisation of both the calendar functionality and the booking of common resources.

Summary of the invention It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a simplified residential man- agement system. The present invention overcomes the problems associated with prior art technology by means of a system and a method for reservation of services available in a residential computer network, which residential computer network in- cludes a plurality of clients, controlled by a central host server, the system compris- ing : a service gateway, which via an access network is in bi-directional con- nection with the central host server, at least one client, such as a communication terminal with a display unit, accessing the central host server via the service gateway, a calendar function with a schedule of planned appointments and ac- tivities, the function hosted by the central host server, retrieved and displayed on the display unit of the communication terminal,

characterised in that a booking function with a schedule of reservations of common re- sources, the function hosted by the central host server, retrieved and displayed on the display unit of the communication terminal, and information residing in the central host server about calendar and booking schedules is integrated and displayed in a co-ordinated way on the display unit of the communication terminal, so as to optimise the usability of the organising tools and avoid double-bookings of common resources.

By means of the system and method according to the invention, bookings of com- mon resources and calendar data can be synchronised and made visible simultane- ously on one display, preferably the display of the communication terminal. A major advantage of this is that the accessibility and functionality is improved, as well as the lucidity of reservations and planned activities. The present invention leads to an enhanced real and experienced reliability to users who are about to make reserva- tions within the integrated calendar and booking system, due to the reduced or in practice even avoided risk for double-booking of common resources. It is no longer necessary to take the chance of booking a common resource without knowing about planned appointments or activities in advance. The booking functionality is wire- lessly integrated with the calendar function of the organising tool, which greatly en- hances the convenience of the intelligent residential service system.

The calendars contain programs and planned activities of each family member sepa- rately as well as a co-ordination of the whole family. The calendar can be synchro- nised with mobile telephones and other communication terminals, but also with per- sonal digital assistants, PDAs and other electronic organising tools.

Brief description of the drawings The features, objects, and further advantages of this invention will become apparent by reading this description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numerals refer to like elements and in which: Fig 1 schematically illustrates the infrastructure of the residential network with an integrated calendar and booking functionality in accordance with the present inven- tion.

Fig 2 is a flow chart depicting the operation of the integrated calendar and booking functionality according to the present invention.

Detailed description The following description is of the best mode presently contemplated for practising the invention. The description is not to be taken in a limiting sense, but is made merely for the purpose of describing the general principles of the invention. The scope of the invention should be ascertained with reference to the issued claims.

It will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that this invention can be embodied in other specific forms without departing from its essential character. The embodiments described below should therefore be considered in all respects to be illustrative and not restrictive.

Fig 1 schematically illustrates the system for integration of a booking and a calendar function in a residential computer network according to the present invention. The system comprises a central host server 10, which in one embodiment is a remote

control unit. Information and all required data about the current booking situation and calendar appointments is residing in the central host server 10, from where it can be retrieved by various clients and communication terminals. Also other func- tionality of the residential system is monitored by the central host server 10, and from there the possibly large number of connected residential computer networks can be controlled and overviewed. In association with the central host server 10 a display unit 15 is arranged with an interactive user interface, like for instance a touch screen, speech recognition unit or keyboard. A remote access server 18 (RAS) is in connection with the central host server 10, in order to provide wireless access from mobile telephones or from other communication terminals. The central host server 10 is also connected to an access network 30 via the Internet or any other similar and global interconnecting network 20. The external network may also be connected via other access technologies and evolve freely with developments gener- ally within the field of access technologies, and a conceivable development of ac- cess technology in a few years of time is to access the residential network wire- lessly. At present, in most cases the access network 30 is a PSTN (public switched telephone network) which is managed and maintained by any local telecommunica- tions operator 35. It is beneficial especially for vendors of residential computer net- works to use such existing telephony networks since they already provide connec- tions to virtually every household, at least in the industrialised regions of the world, but also in many of the so-called developing countries. The deployment of remotely controlled residential computer networks can be accelerated to reasonable costs when the already existing telephony network is utilised. In a near future, so-called IP telephony will be deploying at even faster rates and take over the role held by the PSTN of today.

Still with reference to Fig 1, the access network 30 reaches the residential side, i. e. the communication network residing within the user's household. This part of the network will be called the residential network 40 throughout this document. This residential network 40 is divided into one open branch 50 and secure branch 60. A

network distributor 55 is designed to dynamically allocate bandwidth to the open and secure branches 50,60 respectively, in accordance with their current needs. The open branch 50 is used for applications, such as one or more personal computers (PC) and game consoles (GC). Other conceivable open applications may be various information terminals (SF), such as for example so-called"surf boards","web pads" (WP) or other similar interactive information terminals.

According to a further embodiment of the present invention, a communication ter- minal 65, such as a personal digital assistant (PDA) provided with infrared commu- nication means, is connected to the personal computer (PC) via an infrared connec- tion of the types conventional IR or IRDA. The central host server 10 and the mem- ory location of calendar and booking data can be accessed from this remotely situ- ated communication terminal 65 in order to organise appointments and make reser- vations of common resources. Another embodiment is to access data within the central host server 10 via an infrared transmitter and receiver of the service gateway 70. The personal digital assistant may be any other type of communication means 65, such as a mobile telephone, as long as the communication means 65 is provided with a display 67, infrared transmitter and receiver.

The central host server 10 can be accessed from yet another input, and thus from closely co-operating partner companies being specialised in their respective fields of services. Operative responsibilities for these services, such as operation and mainte- nance of residential door locks, heating and electric power services, can be dele- gated to the specialised partners. However, before operative responsibilities are delegated, they must be fully approved by the owners. Remotely controlled opera- tions are both monitored and recorded for later tracing of events. More in detail, op- erational data can be used at a later stage if necessary, for reconstruction and deri- vation of activities, in order to investigate for instance the point of time and the re- sponsible authorising party with regards to a certain event that has occurred.

The other branch of the residential network 40, i. e. the secure branch 60 is provided with an extended service gateway 70. The residential network 40 behind the service gateway is the secure part of the network and the place for secure applications, such as door locks and window locks, alarm systems, climate control, timer arrangements for the lighting and kitchen appliances among others. In Fig 1, those applications have been designated with the characters A, B, C, D, E, etc. There is a large number of further possible residential functions to be controlled by an operative residential management system, but since the operation of such a system clearly is beyond the scope of this invention, a more exhaustive description can be found elsewhere.

It is to be understood that the central host server 10 is not at all limited to one single server unit, but may comprise multiple servers and a plurality of domains. Accord- ing to one embodiment, all information about calendar appointments and bookings resides in the central host server 10, but another conceivable solution is to store this information on separate servers for each house. However, this solution requires multiple remote access arrangements for providing each separate host server with communication inputs. Operative responsibilities of the domains may be delegated to closely co-operating partners who are specialised in their respective fields of services, such as residential security or energy services, which is very similar to the way services are delegated by the central host server 10. Delegation requires ap- proval by the residence owners in advance.

There are several common resources feasible to be shared by people living in differ- ent apartments. Some of those resources have already been mentioned earlier, a further one is the access to unattended delivery units (UDU) intended to be used by companies for delivering goods to people who have ordered them with a minimal risk for theft. This applies of course in particular when people are not at home at the time of delivery. A few other applications are the reservation of a sauna, a swim- ming pool, a relax area and a dinner room for a larger party. Security aspects are important, and the accessibility depends on the current booking situation. By means

of electronic keys or badges, exclusive access to reserved common resources can be controlled, the access is provided to the party who has made the reservation. In the same manner, the common resource is made occupied and unavailable to anybody who has not made a reservation at that time.

By means of the communication terminal 65 with the display unit 67, synchronisa- tion with the central host server 10 can be carried out, which means that the most current information is retrieved and transferred from the central host server 10 to the communication terminal 65. At first, the connection is established and only the in- formation residing in the central host server 10, which is accessible from the com- munication terminal 65 is transferred, whereby the communication terminal 65 cal- endar and booking data is brought up to date. The communication terminal 65 may be provided with a GSM module in order to establish a radio transmittance connec- tion with a the remote access server 18 (RAS) directly with the central host server 10, whereby the functionality is made similar to that of a mobile telephone.

Another way of synchronising the communication terminal 65 and its matching or integrated display unit 67 with the host server 10 is accomplished via the previously mentioned personal computer (PC). This technique has been described above and is realised by means of anyone of the following technologies separately or a combina- tion of the communication technologies radio communication, like for instance the Bluetooth technology, infrared linking or a so-called wired cradle connected to the PC.

Fig 2 is a flow chart depicting the operation of the integrated calendar and booking functionality according to the present invention. The operative sequence starts (S 10) with a check (S20) of whether there is a need to synchronise the current set of cal- endar data in the communication terminal 65 with the current set of calendar data in the central host server 10, 15. Only calendar data to which a particular user has ac- cess rights is regarded when the calendar synchronisation check is made. If the dif-

ferent sets of data are mismatching, calendar synchronisation is carried out (S30).

Otherwise, the sequence continues with a similar synchronisation (S40-S50) of the current set of common resource booking data. Next step is to co-ordinate (S60) the updated sets of calendar data and booking data and display (S70) it in an integrated manner. The advantage of this is that common facilities and resources can be re- served at times when no scheduled appointments shown in the calendar interfere with the intended time of reservation. A related and closely corresponding advan- tage is that appointments no longer tend to be arranged by mistake at times when common facilities, such as the laundry room has been reserved, which would have to cancel or delay the planned appointment.

Following the display of the present calendar and booking situation is a possibility to change (S80) or insert new data if desired. If this is required, new calendar or booking data is inserted (S90) and otherwise the sequence ends (Sl 110). Subse- quently the new calendar and booking data is synchronised (S100) with the memory location of the central host server 10,15. After that final method step, the sequence reaches its end (S 110).

In accordance with the present invention, software that is developed in parallel with the residential calendar and booking system is utilised for controlling various means.

The software resides in a memory located in the hardware of the central host server 10, the service gateway 70 and the client 65/personal computer (PC) /personal<BR> assistant. The software is designed for instructing the hardware of the residential calendar and booking system and method in a network to carry out the sequential method steps as described with reference to Fig 2.