Openwave Systems Inc.

Phone.com, LLC

Unwired Planet, LLC

Openware Systems Inc.

Peter F King

Bruce V Schwartz

Bruce K Martin, Jr

Stephen S Boyle

Hanqing Liao

Seetharaman Ramasubramani

Lawrence M Stein

Mark A Fox

Alain S Rossmann

Russell S Greer

Mark Lentczner

Paul A Smethers

Steve Dusse

Seetharaman Ramasubraman

Bruce Martin

Improved techniques that enable the exchange of sensitive information between client devices and server devices are disclosed. The exchange, as well as the use and nature, of sensitive information released can be governed by one or more privacy agreements established between the principle parties, namely, a client device and a content server. A proxy server can be used to establish privacy agreements with content servers (service providers).

Method and system for exchanging sensitive information in a wireless communication system

Access to hypermedia servers connected to networks such as the Internet can be provided through mobile devices such as wireless telephones. Hypermedia links such as Uniform Resource Locators (URL) are used to identify and control access to resources on the network. These links are usually very long, are difficult to remember, and are difficult to enter into many mobile devices. These difficulties could be overcome by storing lists of frequently used links or 'bookmarks' in the mobile device but limited memory in the device generally prevents this. This limitation is overcome by storing designated hypermedia links on a bookmark server. In one embodiment, the URL of the bookmark server is sent to the mobile device during initialization of the device. By allowing a user can to save, retrieve and maintain lists of frequently used links on the bookmark server, access to favorite resources on a network is greatly simplified.

Providing a directory of frequently used hyperlinks on a remote server

Techniques for controlling a network connection in accordance with connection information associated with a destination location on a network are disclosed. Controlling of the network connection in accordance with connection information associated with the destination location can be achieved in a variety of ways. One way is in the selection of a network transport (e.g., bearer selection). Another way is in the configuration of parameters associated with the connection (i.e., connection parameters). In either case, the connection information includes information with which the selection of the network transport and/or connection parameters can be made. The controlling of the network connection impacts quality of service provided to a requestor that is requesting use of the connection.

Method and apparatus for controlling network connections based on destination locations

A method and apparatus for establishing a secure tunnel through a proxy between a user device and a secure server on a network are described. The method comprises storing information retrievable by the proxy server, in the event of the user device sending a request to the proxy server to access the secure server during a current session with the proxy server. The information indicates that the user device wishes to access the secure server. Thereafter, the current session between the user device and the proxy server is terminated. A tunnel is set through the proxy server between the user device and the secure server (via a trusted domain proxy/firewall) in the event of the user device sending a further request to the proxy server to access the secure server.

Method of establishing a secure tunnel through a proxy server between a user device and a secure server

A system configured to manage and process service requests within a data network. The system comprises a link server device that is configured to receive a service request from an interactive communication device, wherein the link server device attaches link server information to the service request indicating the operational capabilities of the link server device. A server device configured to receive the service request from the link server device and supply a service request response based upon information in the service request and the link server information. Wherein the link server executes a service command upon receipt of the service request response and supplies a status response to the interactive communication device.

Centralized service management system for two-way interactive communication devices in data networks

A secure push server is disclosed. The push server is used for sending notifications to different wireless clients on different wireless networks. The push server allows information service providers to send notifications to the wireless clients. The information service providers initiate a request to the push server that includes updated information. The request also includes a certificate from the information service provider. The push server authenticates the request from the information service provider by verifying the certificate. The push server also determines if the certificate was issued from an acceptable certificate authority by examining an acceptable certificate authority list. Finally, the push server checks the content of the notification to be sure it does not interfere with other information service providers. After performing the security checks, the push server processes the notification request.

Method and apparatus for maintaining security in a push server

Improved techniques for reducing delays faced by users of mobile devices due to unavailability of wireless networks are disclosed. The techniques facilitate the reduction of delays faced by users of mobile devices during unavailability of wireless networks. A first technique allows mobile devices to communicate with remote servers using asynchronous communications, namely asynchronous requests. Such asynchronous communications allow the processing at a mobile device to continue while the asynchronous request is processed in the background. A second technique pertains to the use of content channels with mobile devices. The content channels are stored and retained in cache memory so that their resources are guaranteed to be locally available, regardless of availability of wireless networks. A third technique pertains to improved list processing within mobile devices such that lists can be manipulated without server interaction. These various techniques can be used separately or in combination.

Wireless mobile devices having improved operation during network unavailability

The present invention has particular applications to the navigation of Internet web pages using two-way interactive communication devices, such as a mobile device, a mobile phone, a landline telephone, and an Internet capable remote controller. According to one aspect of the present invention, each of the two-way interactive communication devices is a node in a distributed network, thus the devices can access hypermedia or hierarchic layers of information stored in server devices on the network. When one or more pages of information are updated, rather than sending the entire updated information to users of the devices subscribing to the updated information through the network, the present invention sends a notification to a proxy server that forwards the notification to the users using a messaging system via a low cost narrowband channel. Upon receiving the notification, the users can fetch the updates, when needed, through a wideband channel. Hence systemic solutions are provided in the present invention to integrate wideband and narrowband channels so as to keep the users informed of any updates to their desired information and meanwhile provide efficient means to the users for retrieving the latest updates without incurring uncontrollable costs and increasing unnecessary network traffics.

Method and apparatus for integrating narrowband and wideband data transports

A unified interface is disclosed for sending update notifications to different wireless clients on different wireless networks. The update notifications may be push notifications or pull notifications. Push notifications include a data payload with updated information. Pull notifications merely specify an address where update information is available. The updated information must be &ldquo;pulled&rdquo; using the supplied address. Several maintenance requests are provided for querying notification status, deleting individual notifications, and clearing all notifications addressed to a particular subscriber.

Method and apparatus for informing wireless clients about updated information

A system and method for provisioning a two-way mobile communications device having a display screen and user interface that is initiated from the device to be provisioned. The device to be provisioned establishes a secure communications session with a provisioning server device. The subject communications path may utilize an intermediate server device. The user of the device is then presented with a plurality of input and choice screens, which may be used in conjunction with the user interface to provide user information, select device features and services. The user information and selected feature and service requests are then forwarded to the provisioning server device. The provisioning server device processes the received information and generates provisioning packages, registration requests, and notifications for the subject mobile device and for any associated server device providing services. The provisioning packages may comprise software modules, parameters and any required security information.

Method and system facilitating web based provisioning of two-way mobile communications devices

A credential caching proxy server that handles credential caching for a set of wireless client devices is disclosed. The credential caching proxy server handles most credential transactions for wireless client devices that wish to access resources within a protected realm where the protected realm requires credentials. In one embodiment, the credential caching proxy server intercepts and caches a wireless client's credentials when a credential is first sent from the wireless user agent to a protected server. The cached credential will then be used for all requests to resources within the same protected realm. Thus, after first sending a first credential for accessing the resource in a particular realm, the wireless user agent does not need to attach the credential for all the subsequent requests for any other resources belong to the same realm. In an alternate embodiment, the proxy server sends a special request to the wireless client device requesting a credential for a particular resource. The special request may take the form of a simple preformatted display page such that a &ldquo;dumb terminal&rdquo; wireless client device can be used to communicate with protected Internet resources even though the &ldquo;dumb&rdquo; wireless client device has no concept of authentication and authorization.

Method and apparatus for caching credentials in proxy servers for wireless user agents

A wireless communication system that utilizes a remote voice recognition server system to translate voice input received from serviced mobile devices into a symbolic data file (e.g. alpha-numeric or control characters) that can be processed by the mobile devices. The translation process begins by establishing a voice communication channel between the serviced mobile device and the voice recognition server. A user of the mobile device then begins speaking in a fashion that may be detected by the voice recognition server system. Upon detecting the user's speech, the voice recognition server system translates the speech into a symbolic data file, which is then forwarded to the user through a separate data communication channel. The user, upon receiving the symbolic data file at the mobile device, reviews and edits the content and further utilizes the file as desired.

Server based speech recognition user interface for wireless devices

The present invention discloses a centralized certificate management system for thin client devices in data networks and has particular applications to systems having a large number of the thin clients serviced by a proxy server through which the thin clients communicate with a plurality of secure server computers over a data network. According to one aspect, the present invention comprises a certificate management module that causes the server device to manage digital certificates for each of the thin client devices. To minimize the latency of obtaining certificates for each of the thin client devices, the certificate management module reserves a fixed number of free certificates signed by a certificate authority and their respective private keys in a certificate database and frequently updates the free certificate according to a certificate updating message. Whenever a user account is created for a thin client device, the certificate management module fetches one or more free certificates from the certificate database and associate the fetched certificates to the created account and meanwhile the certificate management module creates new free certificates with the certificate authority to fill in the certificate database. Apart from the tradition of obtaining certificates locally in client devices that normally have sufficient computing power, the present invention uses the computing resources in a server device to carry out the task of obtaining and maintaining certificates asynchronously in the proxy server and further. These and other features in the present invention dramatically minimize the demands for computing power and memory in thin client devices like mobile devices, cellular phones, landline telephones or Internet appliance controllers.

Centralized certificate management system for two-way interactive communication devices in data networks

The present invention is a method and system for establishing an authenticated and secure communication session for transactions between a server and a client in a wireless data network that generally comprises an airnet, a landline network and a link server therebetween. The client having limited computing resources is remotely located with respect to the server and communicates to the server through the wireless data network. To authenticate each other, the client and the server conduct two rounds of authentication, the client authentication and the server authentication, independently and respectively, each of the authentication processes is based on a shared secret encrypt key and challenge/response mechanism. To reach for a mutually accepted cipher in the subsequent transactions, the server looks up for a commonly used cipher and forwards the cipher along with a session key to the client. The subsequent transactions between the client and the server are then proceeded in the authenticated and secure communication session and further each transaction secured by the session key is labeled by a transaction ID that is examined before a transaction thereof takes place.

Method and system for secure lightweight transactions in wireless data networks

Aliasing techniques that permit flexibly linking to remotely located resources are disclosed. The aliasing techniques are used by a browser application to link to a remote resource located on a network (e.g., the Internet) when the location of the remote resource is initially unknown or likely to be changed based on events external to the browser application. For example, the external events can include: relocation of the remote resource, use of a different device, user or carrier service to access the remote resource, or selection of different service levels. In one embodiment, a browser application executes on a wireless remote computing device and couples to a network gateway via a carrier network. The aliasing techniques are provided by sending alias information from the network gateway to the browser application, and then having the browser application form an alias table and store the alias table in the wireless remote computing device. The wireless remote computing device can be any of a wide range of devices that have wireless and computing capabilities, including a cellular phone, a personal digital assistant and a portable general purpose computer.

Growing community of inventors

Half Moon Bay, CA, United States of America

Peter F King