Terminal device in document information communication system

Details Terminal device in document information communication system Terminal device in document information communication system

1999-01-22

2001-12-04

Maung, Zarni (Department: 2154)

Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput

Remote data accessing

Accessing a remote server

C709S236000, C709S224000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06327616

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to terminal devices, such as e-mail terminals and portable information terminals, connected via a network in a document information communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in the use of a variety of communication devices such as telephones, facsimiles, digital mobile telephones, PHS (personal handy phone system), portable communication terminals, pagers capable of receiving a message and workstations connected to LAN (Local Area Network) and WAN (Wide Area Network). This situation provides users with many opportunities to handle different types of communication terminal devices.
Therefore, there is increasing demand for improved capability of transmitting and receiving a multimedia document which includes data of different media attributes, such as audio data, character data, still image data, motion picture data and hand-written data. However, such communication terminal devices are not readily available to users due to their high cost and bulky size.
A protocol called MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension) has been established for transmitting such multimedia document in data communication. According to MIME, a plurality of document elements constitute a document, each having a single media attribute and meaning. Each document element has data showing its media attribute and display method.
MIME is described in detail in “Network Working Group Request for Comments 1341”.
Generally, a communication terminal device for transmitting a document including different media attributes has a document described in MIME and transmits it to a receiver terminal device. The receiver terminal device decodes the document elements included in the document based on their media attribute data. When the document includes data of a media attribute which cannot be decoded and displayed (outputted), this data is ignored by the receiver terminal device.
FIG. 1
shows the construction of the terminal device in the conventional document information communication system. Transmitter terminal device
11
and receiver terminal device
12
are connected via network
13
. Transmitter terminal device
11
comprises document information storage unit
14
and transmission unit
15
. Receiver terminal device
12
comprises reception unit
16
and document output unit
17
.
Document
20
in
FIG. 2
is transmitted from terminal device
11
to terminal device
12
as follows. Document
20
comprises document elements
21
,
22
,
23
,
24
and
25
having “character” as their media attributes and document element
26
having “monochrome still picture” as its media attribute.
Document information storage unit
14
stores document
20
in the form of document information control table
30
shown in FIG.
3
. Document information control table
30
comprises element data
31
, element data size
32
and media attribute
33
. For example, in the case of document element
21
“Notice of a Meeting”, its media attribute is “character” and data size is “19”. In the case of document element
26
, its media attribute is “monochrome still picture” and data size is “1000”.
Transmission unit
15
receives a user's indication of a transmission destination terminal (which can be any of the terminals) and document information, reads document information control table
30
stored in document information storage unit
14
and transmits it to reception unit
16
of terminal device
12
via network
13
.
Reception unit
16
of terminal device
12
receives document information control table
30
transmitted from terminal device
11
. Document output unit
17
decodes information control table
30
and outputs it to the display screen. If terminal device
12
has the same function (output capability) as terminal device
11
, document output unit
17
outputs the same document as document
20
shown in
FIG. 2
to the display screen. However, if terminal device
12
is a character e-mail terminal which is capable of decoding only element data having “character” as its media attribute, the terminal device outputs only element data of document elements
21
,
22
, . . . ,
25
to the display screen, as is shown in FIG.
4
.
As the character e-mail terminal is not capable of decoding and displaying (outputting) the element data of document element
26
, the reception of this document
26
is futile.
As mentioned above, it was often likely that such futile communication is often performed by the conventional document information communication system, as transmitter terminal device
11
transmits all of the information in document information control table
30
stored in document information storage unit
14
regardless of the output capability of receiver terminal device
12
.
In addition to this problem, it has also not been possible to transmit all of document
20
to receiver terminal device
12
.
It can be the case that the intended receiver of the data is in possession of another communication device, aside from receiver terminal
12
, which is capable of outputting a different part of the document data. However, in this case, it is still impossible to avoid the futile transmission of data which cannot be outputted to both devices.
Receiver terminal device
12
is indicated by the user in transmission terminal device
11
. If the user of receiver terminal device
12
possesses another terminal device, it may be more convenient to transmit the element data to that terminal device.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the stated problems, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a terminal device for use in a document information communication system where documents can be transmitted between terminal devices without futile communication.
A second object of the present invention is to provide a terminal device which can communicate document information in accordance with a operational state of a user's terminal device.
A third object of the present invention is to provide a relay device which can prevent the occurrence of futile communication and which enables the construction of each terminal to be simplified.
The aforementioned primary object can be achieved by a terminal device to be used in a system where sets of transmission document information are transferred via a network between terminal devices which are grouped together in a plurality of different groups, the terminal device comprising: a document information storage unit for storing document information which is made up of a plurality of document elements which are to be transmitted; a terminal device arrangement information storage unit for storing terminal device arrangement information made up of each group name, a type of each terminal device provided at each group and an address of each terminal device; a terminal device capability information control unit for controlling terminal device capability information which shows what kinds of document information can be outputted by each type of terminal device; a transmission document information creation unit for selecting terminal devices based on the group name of a group to be transmitted to and the terminal device arrangement information and for creating sets of the transmission document information from the document information to be transmitted in accordance with the terminal device capability information; and a transmission unit for transmitting the created sets of transmission document information to the selected terminal devices.
By means of the stated construction, since each set of transmission document information transmitted by the transmission unit is created by the transmission document information creation unit in accordance with the type of transmission destination terminal device, which is to say the transmission document information creation unit only creates outputable sets of transmission document information, the transmission destination terminal device is able to output all of the received information with no futile rece

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