Research in Motion Corporation

Blackberry Corporation

Malikie Innovations Limited

Sherif Abdel-kader

Yongsheng Chen

Dave Bajar

Scott Gammon

Sherif Aly Abdel-Kader

Vytautas Robertas Kezys

Michael Chen

Michael Peter Montemurro

Aaron J Cryderman

Nicholas Bryson Wilson

Srdjan Majkic

Neil Patrick Adams

Roger Durand

David Bajar

Leonardo Jose Silva Salomone

Robert Joseph Alain Guay

Robert Ja Guay

Leonardo Jose Salomone

Robert J Guay

An improved system and method for address entry are provided for a user to enter a plurality of addresses into a recipient field associated with an electronic communication. According to embodiments described herein, a first user input is received. The first user input is indicative of a first recipient for an electronic communication, where the first recipient includes a first name and a last name. A second user input is received in addition to the first recipient while the electronic communication is currently addressed to the first recipient. The second user input is indicative of a portion of a second recipient for the electronic communication. An auto-complete list of one or more suggested recipients that correspond to the second user input is displayed while the electronic communication is currently addressed to the first recipient. The one or more suggested recipients do not include the first recipient.

System and method for improved address entry

An improved system and method for address entry are provided for a user to enter a plurality of addresses into a recipient field of an electronic communication composition application. According to embodiments described herein, an auto-complete list is generated based on an input indicative of at least a portion of a current recipient address and is additionally based on a previously entered recipient address, and the auto-complete list is then displayed.

A system and method are provided that enable a mobile device when out-of-coverage and thus unable to send or receive messages to rely on other mobile devices which are also out-of-coverage as 'hosts' for their outgoing messages such that when one of the hosts comes back into coverage the host mobile device (HMD) can send the outgoing messages on behalf of the originating or 'source' mobile device (SMD). The system and method may comprise a pairing procedure to determine the suitability of a mobile device being an HMD according to criteria such as battery power, memory availability and whether the device is also out of coverage. When coming back into coverage, information is obtained from the data communication system to determine whether others have already sent messages that have been provided to host mobile devices.

System and method for enabling messages to be sent while a mobile device is out-of-coverage

Methods and systems for sharing information on languages supported by portable electronic devices are disclosed. Some embodiments of the disclosed methods involve, for example, a first portable electronic device transmitting to a server, information identifying the first portable electronic device, and information related to one or more languages that the first portable electronic device is capable of displaying. The server stores the received information, and shares the information with electronic devices that subsequently request information on the language capabilities of the first portable electronic device.

Methods and systems for sharing language capabilities

An apparatus, and an associated method, for facilitating alert handling at a communication device provides for selection at the communication device of the manner by which terminating communications at the communication device are handled. A terminating communication is detected at a receive part of the communication device, and an indication of its reception is displayed. Together with the displayed indication of the terminating communication, an actuation key is provided to permit selection of alert handling of the terminating communication and subsequent terminating communications.

Apparatus, and associated method, for selecting terminating communication notification handling at a communication device

Techniques in a mobile communication device for signal monitoring in a wireless communication network are described. The mobile device operates for communications over a communication channel of the wireless network. During operation, the mobile device periodically obtains measurements of signal quality of the communication channel at a rate R. In addition, the mobile device obtains a measurement of velocity or acceleration of the mobile device. In response to an increase in the measure of velocity or acceleration, the mobile device increases the rate R. Conversely, in response to a decrease in the measurement of velocity or acceleration, the mobile device decreases the rate R. The measurements of the signal quality may be used to determine whether to initiate a handover to a different wireless network. In one illustrative environment, the initial wireless network is a wireless local area network (WLAN), the other wireless network is a wireless wide area network (WWAN), the signal quality is a received signal strength indication (RSSI) of the communication channel, and the monitoring involves obtaining samples of the RSSI.

Methods and apparatus for signal monitoring in a wireless communication network

A mobile wireless device for use in a wireless network, wherein the wireless network includes regular access points and border access points. The border access points are those access points situated at the edge of the campus or other physical facility associated with the wireless network and they define the edge of the coverage area of the wireless network. The mobile wireless device predicts a possible drop of an active service due to loss of coverage by recognizing when it has connected with a border access point. A warning is output to the user of the mobile wireless device. The mobile wireless device may further recognize if it is located on the exterior side of the border access point away from the interior of the wireless network.

Method and system for predicting service drop in a wireless network

A method and device for identifying degradation in service quality for a wireless media service. The wireless media service has a known expected packet generation rate, which may be determined by the device based upon the codec and payload size selected on initiating the media service. At a receiving device, the packets actually received by the device from the other termination point are counted over a time period, and this number is compared with the number of packets that were expected based upon the known packet generation rate. From this comparison a packet loss rate may be determined. If the packet loss rate exceeds a threshold level, then the device may issue a user alert, terminate the service, or take other action. The threshold level may be established based upon a packet loss rate corresponding to a significant degree of service quality degradation.

Method and system for identifying degradation of a media service

A method and mobile device that self-terminates a media service if an out-of-coverage condition is detected. The media service operates on top of a connectionless peer-to-peer packet-based transport protocol. The out-of-coverage condition may relate to the mobile device itself or to a remote mobile device engaged in the media service. The loss of coverage by the remote mobile device may be detected by observing whether the remote mobile device has failed to send any data packets for more than a predetermined period of time. If an out-of-coverage situation is detected, then the method or device initiates service cancellation or release.

Method and system for self-terminating a media service due to an out-of-coverage condition

The invention provides a method and device that communicate with a 802.11-class network and processes communications with a Bluetooth network. A passive beacon scan is conducted in a channel of a 802.11-class network through a series of spaced segments, such that the series of spaced segments represent a timeframe of a notional beacon period that would span a continuous period for the 802.11-class network; and data is transmitted from the communication device to the Bluetooth network between two of consecutive segments of the series of spaced segments.

System and method of maintaining a connection with a first network while processing communications with a second network by a communication device

A method is provided on an electronic communications device having a subscriber identifier, the method for disambiguating multiple contacts associated with an electronic communication. The method includes searching a plurality of stored contacts for an association with the electronic communication. For any contact associated with the electronic communication, verifying whether the contact has a subscriber identifier associated with the electronic device and identifying a contact as the initiator or recipient of the electronic communication if the contact is without a subscriber identifier.

System and method for identifying a contact associated with an electronic communication

A wireless local area network client device scans for wireless local area networks using a scanning scheme that takes into account the relative prevalence, in a population of access points, of access point deployment on the channels to be scanned. In one aspect, channels on which more access points in the population are deployed are scanned prior to channels on which fewer access points in the population are deployed. In another aspect, channels on which more access points in the population are deployed are scanned more often than channels on which fewer access points in the population are deployed. In yet another aspect, channels on which more access points in the population are deployed are scanned prior to and more often than channels on which fewer access points in the population are deployed.

WLAN scanning by prevalence of access point deployment on certain channels

Automatically selecting an emergency number for use by a mobile communications device enabled for Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communications, including: receiving at the mobile communications device a geographic indicator in a beacon frame transmitted from a wireless access point of a wireless local area network that is connected to an Internet Protocol network; and determining from a plurality of emergency numbers stored in a storage element of the mobile communications device a selected emergency number in dependence on the received geographic indicator.

Emergency number selection for mobile communications device

One illustrative method for reducing power consumption in a mobile communication device of a wireless local area network (WLAN) involves the steps of identifying a communication signal quality value between the mobile device and a wireless access point of the WLAN with which the mobile device is currently associated; determining an initial timer value based on a predefined relationship with the communication signal quality value where, as the communication signal quality value decreases, the initial timer value correspondingly decreases; initializing a scan trigger timer with the initial timer value and running the scarf trigger timer; and upon expiration of the scan trigger timer: causing a scanning operation to be performed for identifying one or more wireless access points in a coverage region; and repeating the acts of identifying, determining, initializing and running the scan trigger timer, and causing the scanning operation to be performed. Preferably, the mobile device operates to refrain from performing scanning operations altogether when the communication signal quality value is greater than a scan trigger threshold value. The scan trigger threshold value may be derived from or calculated based on a previously-received or last-sampled communication signal quality value of the wireless access point sampled at a time when the mobile device chose to reassociate with a different wireless access point of the WLAN.

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Waterloo, Canada

Sherif Aly Abdel-Kader