Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Special service
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-22
2004-08-31
Tsang, Fan (Department: 2645)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Special service
C455S414200, C455S414300, C455S456100, C455S412200, C455S456300
Reexamination Certificate
active
06785538
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication system for mobile device users, a communication method for mobile device users, a communication business method for mobile device users, a communication program, a storage medium storing a communication program which causes processing to be performed by computers making up a center being communicated with a portable information terminal through a wireless communication unit, a portable information terminal for communication with a center via a wireless communication unit, and a communication business center apparatus for mobile device users being communicated with a portable information terminal via a wireless communication unit.
The present application claims priority of Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-082415 filed on Mar. 23, 2000, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional communication system and communication method which provide an occasion matching service, such as an acquainting occasion service, to a user of a mobile device, the user stores, in advance, attributes including an age, a gender or a like of the user and attributes including a request for a type of occasion matching service in a computer of a center and transmits his/her present place to the computer of the center from a portable information terminal that the user carries using a portable cellular phone or a like as wireless communication unit and the computer of the center retrieves information about a place in which another user exists in close proximity to the above user and transmits a retrieved result to the portable information terminal of the user.
Moreover, another method is disclosed in which the user of the portable information terminal stores a message in the computer of the center using the portable information terminal and only other users existing in close proximity to the above user are allowed to browse the message.
However, in the above conventional communication system and communication method for the mobile device user, a match is achieved between users not only by using information about the place of the user but also by using his/her attributes including a age, a gender, or the like which have been stored in advance as information about an occasion, that is, an individual preference according to an occasion, that the user desires, in the computer of the center. Therefore, the conventional system and method have a problem in that the information required for occasion matching is made fixed, making it impossible to dynamically change contents of the occasion that the user desires with change of time or place. That is, the user, at present, may not have an interest in what the user had in the past, which means that the information about a kind of the occasion matching changes with time.
In the conventional communication system and method for the mobile device users, to keep up with such changes of the occasion matching desired by the user, re-storing of information about the occasion desired newly and presently by the user in the computer of the center is required. However, this becomes burdensome to the user because the user has to store again and again changed desires in the computer of the center.
Though the re-storing of the age, the gender, or the like of the user is easy, the re-storing of information about what kind of acquainting occasion the user desires newly or what kind of the spot the user comes to like, as attributes, in the computer of the center requires much time and labor. The re-storing also becomes burdensome to the user if the user has to store the information every time the occasion desired by the user changes. It is essential to take some of the burden off of the user using such the communication system and method of the portable information terminal.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide a communication system, a communication method, a communication business method, a portable information terminal, a communication business center apparatus, a communication program, and a storage medium storing the communication program for mobile device users which are capable of automatically acquiring an occasion matching that the user desires while the portable information terminal is in an operating state and of implementing, based on a most up-to-date information, successful communication between users existing in proximity to each other and having similar kinds of the desired occasion matching and achieving increased numbers of successful occasion matching.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a communication system for mobile device users including:
a portable information terminal;
a center; and
wherein the portable information terminal and the center are communicated with each other through a wireless communication unit; and
wherein the portable information terminal has:
a place information managing unit used to acquire information about a place where the portable information terminal exists and to manage the acquired place information; and
a message managing unit used to manage the place information, an identification to identify a user and an operational behavior of the user in a form of a message and to transmit the message to the center and used to provide a message fed from the center to the user;
wherein the center has:
a message controlling unit used to transmit the message to the portable information terminal and to receive the message from the portable information terminal;
a user TPO element information extracting unit used to extract element information made up of information about a present time (T), a present place (P), and an individual preference according to a present Occasion (O) of the user from the message fed from the portable information terminal.
a spot information database used to store spot information about a restaurant and/or a sight-seeing resort made up of information about spots and explanatory contents of the spots;
an occasion learning unit used to learn a desired individual preference according to an occasion from the user TPO element information and the spot information database and to produce user TPO data made up of static information containing the identification, age, gender of the user and of dynamic information about when and where the user has visited and about what kind of spot or information the user has an interest in;
a user TPO database used to store a user TPO data produced for each user by the occasion learning unit; and
a TPO matching unit used to select spot information, when the message fed from the user includes a request for spot information, by achieving a match between spot information and the user TPO data of the user having transmitted the request message contained in the user TPO database and to request the message controlling unit to transmit the selected spot information to the portable information terminal of the user having transmitted the message requesting spot information and, when the message fed from the user includes a request for transmission of the message from the user to another user, to select the other user by achieving a match between the user TPO data of the user having transmitted the message requesting for transmission of the message to the other user contained in the user TPO database and user TPO database of the other user and to request the message controlling unit to transmit the message fed from the user to a portable information terminal of the other user.
In the foregoing, a preferable mode is one wherein the message controlling unit in the center judges whether the user having transmitted the message to the center is a user who has been registered with the user TPO database from a user identification contained in the message fed from the portable information terminal and, as a result, if the user is not a registered user, controls the user TPO element information extracting unit so as not to perform extracting processes, the occasion lea
Escalante Ovidio
NEC Corporation
Scully Scott Murphy & Presser
Tsang Fan
LandOfFree
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