Apparatus and method for dynamically limiting information sent to a
Contents
1. 31 3 d11H 9NIH3133 JOVSSIW JAYS YW3 330N3S WON NOTLVWYOINT JHL 9NIA3I31329 J9VSS3W 1S31 Y SI STHL 133r8 0S lIVW3 330N3S WONI LT J9WLS US 6 477 529 B1 Sheet 5 of 6 Nov 5 2002 0383039833 38 01 NOLL3Y oN ON Jee g00 SNOILI YLS3Y TIV 3AOW3Y Ol AVM3LV9 OL ONVWWO3 ON3S v00 SS Avm831v39 OL OL IN3S S9V1 ONY NOILYWYOINI TY AVAILYI OL ON3S 01 SONVWWOI NOTLIIYLS3Y ANY JY3HL Jay ON NOT LYWYO INI JH LITYLSAYNA OL INVA 33Sn 3H1 300 AVR31V9 Ol IN3S 1SI1 1103 01 9 1 NOTLYWHOINI QOY ONY NOIL IO1 JYVW M3IA YISN WOS4 3A0839 NOT L YWYO INI NVIS NOT LYW4O INI 3H1 O31 1dWOI SVH XISN NOIIJI IS NOIl1VNW303NI Q3Y41S30NN 3803 9NI3001 NOI LYW4O INI HONOYH S11033S YISN yasn ol NOIIVIN3S393d ONY 300930 NOTLYWYOJNI oe AWMILY9 WOJ 3SNOdS32 NOT LYWYO INI soe JY NOTLVWYOINT 39V1S NOT L WYO INI U S Patent LANVYINI LSNYSINI MR3IA Ol YW NY O S HSIA ASHL S301330 YISN 1530032 1S30933 NOILYWYOINI NOTIVWNG JNJ age 90 S 1S30039 NOTLYWYOINI 1 39V1S US 6 477 529 B1 Sheet 6 of 6 Nov 5 2002 U S Patent 800r v00r t NOIILYWXOJNI ONY YAS STHL 303 1IN3S33d SONYWWOJ A0V321 J33H1 Juv 3SN Y31Y7 3803 SONYWWOJ NOILIIYLS3Y 40 13S MIN JAYS LS17 ONYWKOJ YISN WOY4 SONYWWOJ NO113I381S38 1N31N03 33H10 303 X33H3 YONARDI HHL SI Q INIS NOILYWNOJNI LIWI1 01 SO2. device comprising means for delivering data in a document from an infor mation database coupled to the gateway device to the wireless handheld viewing device means for receiving all possible data in the document from the gateway device that the wireless handheld viewing device is capable of displaying means for manually selecting exact portions of data in the document that are of importance through a user inter face in the wireless handheld viewing device the means for selecting being configured such that once the selection is complete a series of instructions are returned to the gateway device from the wireless hand held viewing device so that during a subsequent view ing the selected portions of data are removed from the document 4 The system of claim 3 wherein the information data base is a world wide web WWW server and the document is a web page 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 10 5 A system comprising a document server a handheld device configured to receive a document transmitted from the document server the handheld device being further configured to edit selected portions of the document in response to user input and to generate control signals indicative of the user input and a gateway device configured to respond to the control signals by controlling a flow of information transmitted from the document server to the handheld device in accordance with the control sig
3. is performed and hence no actions are sent to the gateway device 14 at step 326 FIG 6 shows a preferred method 400 of operation that the gateway device 14 performs to enable the user to dynami cally restrict information sent to the handheld device 22 The method 400 includes two stages a fetching stage 400A and a restricting stage 400B As originally described in FIG 3 and shown again in FIG 5 information requests arrive from the user at step 402 and are given to the gateway device 14 for processing Information requests are prepared and given to the information source at step 404 In the preferred embodiment this source is typically a web site and the TCP IP protocol is used to transport the information After this request for information the information source 12 12 returns the information at step 406 over the Internet or Intranet to the gateway device 14 that requested the information on behalf of the user of the handheld device 22 Once the information has been received the gateway device 14 checks to see if there is a user filter that matches the handheld device 22 and information reference number URL at step 408 If a match is found then the user filter com mands are applied to the information at step 410 which results in portions of the information being deleted from the data stream This information is then sent to the handheld device 22 at step 410 with the selected information removed If there are no user filters that
4. portions corresponding to information that the user does not want to view during a subsequent retrieval of the same data Once the selection is complete a series of command instructions are returned to the gateway device from the handheld device so that a subsequent viewing corresponds only to that information that was not selected by the user Alternatively the user could select only that portion of data that the user wants to view during a subsequent download In this latter situation the command instruction transmitted to the gateway would instruct the gateway to filter all information except for the selected data The invention provides control over viewed content or information from any database This control is based on commands stored in the gateway device The commands limit the quantity of information sent to the handheld device This functionality is accomplished by first establishing a set of information or content that is going to be restricted by the user Then the handheld device performs an editing function to restrict the information received This editing process causes a set of commands to be passed back to the gateway device to restrict subsequent or future retrievals of the same information The gateway device identifies the subsequent information request and performs the necessary filtering in order to restrict the information sent to the handheld device As will be appreciated the invention is capable of other and di
5. the step of restrict ing the fetched information using dynamic user defined criteria comprises the steps of receiving commands from a user via a user interface determining if the command is an unrestricted request if the command is an unrestricted request then deleting or marking as temporarily inactive all previous restriction commands relating to desired information and if the command is not an unrestricted request then determining if the command is another predetermined type of command 26 The method of claim 25 wherein if the command is not an unrestricted request then performing the steps of determining whether the predetermined type of command is a content restriction command list if the predetermined type of command is a content restric tion command list then checking for previously stored commands present for the user and the desired infor mation and if the predetermined type of command is not a content restriction command list then checking for other com mands from the user 27 The method of claim 24 wherein the document server is a world wide web WWW server and the document is a web page 28 A system for controlling the transmission of informa tion to a wireless device comprising a world wide web WWW server with a plurality of web pages and a gateway device configured to receive an information request from the wireless device identifying the WWW server and to establish a connection to t
6. user into signals that are transmitted across the network connection 20 and understood by the gateway device 14 The information decoder component of the device 24 also uses a control channel to the gateway 14 for facilitating the exchange of special requests such as the information restriction commands as described in more detail below The presentation component of the device 24 prepares the information for display to the user and inter prets special formatting commands within the data stream for the information viewer and user interface 26 The information viewer and user interface 26 is directly accessed by the user and accepts keystrokes and screen movement commands during the information request phase and the information reception phase A more detailed view of the gateway device 14 and handheld device 22 is shown in FIG 2 The information translator 16 is coupled to and communicates with the target web site and other information sources database 12 through a Hypertext Transfer Protocol HTTP fetch and cache component 16A The target web sites and other information sources database 12 can be a range of computers computer systems and networks For example the information can be stored in local databases on an Intranet or on the Internet The information translator 16 further includes a filter and transformation engine 16B a compression and encryption support module 16C and a wireless transport layer 16D If the information is n
7. 10 includes a database or information source 12 coupled to a control device 14 The information source 12 could be an Internet site an Intranet site a database engine or even a local system The control device 14 in the preferred embodiment is a gateway host device The gateway device 14 includes an information translator 16 and a content filter and storage area 18 A network connection 20 couples the gateway device 14 to a user interface and viewing device 22 preferably a wireless handheld viewing device The handheld viewing device 22 includes an information decoder and presentation compo nent 24 and an information viewer and user interface 26 The network 20 is preferably a wireless packet data network such as Mobitex or DataTAC which has limited band width capabilities although it could be many other types of networks In a preferred embodiment the handheld device is a BlackBerry or an Inter ctive Pager manufactured by Research In Motion Limited However the present inven tion may be incorporated into other handheld devices or wireless transceivers such as two way paging computers personal digital assistants PDAs portable electronic messaging devices cellular phones or handheld e mail clients Further in the preferred embodiment the gateway device 14 and handheld device 22 may be implemented utilizing either a software programmable digital signal pro cessor DSP or a programmable logic device In this
8. 308 to the handheld device 22 The information is decoded and presented to the user at step 310 by the information decoder and presentation component 24 By using the user interface 26 the user preferably scrolls through the information searching for undesired sections at step 312 The user can enter a scanning termination sequence at step 314 which is either exiting the information screen or a menu choice While viewing the information the user can remove information from the screen at step 316 using deletion commands provided by the user interface and keyboard 26 Each time a section of data is selected it is tagged and labeled as having been removed at step 318 A corresponding restriction command will subsequently be sent to the gateway device 14 step 324 so that the tagged information will be automatically removed from the same information if a subsequent request occurs Once the user has completed an information scan and restriction in steps 314 318 the system then determines whether the user wants to un restrict some range of information that was previously restricted at step 320 If so then the information decoder 24 prepares the correct com mand sequence and sends it to the gateway device 14 at step 322 for execution Otherwise the user interface 26 deter mines if there are any restricting commands present at step 324 If so then the commands are prepared and sent to the gateway device 14 at step 328 If not then no action
9. B and 90C respectively In this process 90 information requests A see also step 306 in FIG 5 flow into the gateway device 14 during the fetching stage 90A at step 100 At this stage 90A the gateway device 14 is simply acting as a traditional proxy machine and is taking the request and finding the correct information source 12 that can fulfill the request from step 100 The requested information is received at the gateway 14 from the information source 12 and flows into the first part of the restricting stage 90B at step 104 In this part of the restricting stage 90B the gateway device 14 performs gen eral filtering followed by a dynamic restriction step using the user s pre established filters As shown in step 104 there could be HTML content Java content pictures graphics animation and other data types received in the data stream from the information source 12 During this initial restrict ing stage 90B advanced HTML commands are stripped at 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 6 step 106 to form a data stream of filtered HTML and Java content 108 Then at step 110 any Java commands are removed to form a data stream of filtered HTML information 112 The restricting stage 90B further comprises the step of applying a user specific filter 114 with filtering commands C see also step 410 in FIG 6 to further filter the data stream 112 In this step 114 the restricting stage 90B checks t
10. ESS DEVICE GATEWAY RECE IVES COMMANDS AND IDENTIFIES TYPE FILTERED HTML AND JAVA CONTENT SAVE COMMANDS IN MEMORY DISK FOR LATER FILTERING REQUIREMENTS PASSED TO CONTENT FILTER WIRELESS DEVICE PHYSICAL STORAGE MEDIA US 6 477 529 B1 Sheet 1 of 6 Nov 5 2002 U S Patent JJIAI0 QVSHONVH NOI1VIN3S33d ONY 3300330 NOILVWYOJNI JJVJYJINI 33S0 ONY YIMSTA NOILVWYOJNI Ol J9VYOLS ONY 3831113 1N31N03J JIAO AVA31V9 9 YOLVY ISNVYL NO LYWYO INI 33300S NOIIVNW3JO3JNI US 6 477 529 B1 Sheet 2 of 6 Nov 5 2002 U S Patent 2 Bid yo JINGOW LYOddNS SSI1IU1M ONY 310008 SOOHLIW 3003 OIOV3 O13HONVH AMJAI 130 SS3133818 INOOH 310008 4300330 ONY LYQdd S 130dd 1S 331 33d331NI 3003 31148 ONY ONY S 311I3 dllH NOISS33dW03 JNK 1Y0ddNS N3393S YJSMQYE ONY 301103 JINGOW LYOddNS 03v08133 ONY LAGNI YISN S33300S NOT LYWYO INI Y3H10 ONY S31IS 834 1393Vv1 ee 3J3IA30 Q 13HONVH pl JJIA30 AVA31V9 US 6 477 529 B1 Sheet 3 of 6 Nov 5 2002 U S Patent VICOJN 39Vv301S WIISAHd SINIW3YINOIY 831113 JdA1 S31 4TLN3OI 9N1831113 AJLYT IN3IN02 Sian 303 ASTO AYOWIH OL 03SSva Satay 331A30 a NL SUNW403_3 6 jvasivg SS3T3M1A O31 Idd S331113 ONY WIH 3SN 831113 HLTM WIH 1103 0 801 901 rOl I La d 8 39V1S ONILITYLS3Y O3AOWIY IN3INO3 VAYE ET INGINOD INJINOD WH 0300384843 ONY S9Y1 03431713 39801 wou n YAW uA Tv SJIHd
11. NYWWOJ 831113 YISN AlddV i ene uD JIYNOS TNI HILVW JJN3Y3 43 WONS OINYN13Y NOILYWNOJNI NOILYWYO INI NOT L YWYO INI 1103 ONIS S300 Q SONYWWOD JO 13S 070 ONY 13S AJN 39338 JATLIYNI AJIYVYOdWIL SV JYYW X0 39YX01S WOY4 313130 ONY SONYWWOD NOTLITYLS3Y ONI J3 g3Sn i WOXJ 1S3N03 Y NOILJIYLISIYNNA SJAIYYY O NV ONYWWOI ONYWWOJ HHL SI AVAJLY9 J9VIS 9NI13 I31S39 e J9VIS eOr yasn 13N331NI WOH 4 1113303 01 3aynos NOI YWHOANI SAATA 01 03SS d ISINDI 1S30033 Oj3NI NOILYWNOJNI J9VIS 9NIH3133j 1 39V1IS US 6 477 529 B1 1 APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DYNAMICALLY LIMITING INFORMATION SENT TO A VIEWING DEVICE BACKGROUND 1 Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a system and method that provide remote control over information sent to a viewing device The system and method provide control over the content or quantity of information sent to the viewing device In particular the information may be an Internet or Intranet world wide web WWW page with Hypertext Markup Language HTML Handheld Device Markup Lan guage HDML Wireless Markup Language WML or Java content The remote viewing device may be a handheld laptop or palmtop device with a limited viewing space for the information being received and preferably connects to the Internet over a relatively low bandwidth wireless radio network 2 Description of the Related Art Typically handheld or palmtop devices have very l
12. V3D F 001 AVR31V9 JHL OL VIVO JHL SNYNIIY ONY VIVO 303 S1S3ND3Y 1S30033 3H1 S1T1I3103 SJ3A13333 LSOH 3JIA3O 3IYNOS NOIIVW303N1 SSJ133IN Y 391S NIHIL 03 US 6 477 529 B1 Sheet 4 of 6 Nov 5 2002 U S Patent b Big QNIMOHS SLINN OOO IV 38W3W YIA LSY1 l ET WIL IWYS sihi 303 SIWS SNOTAIY OEE 40 3SV333NI NV SNIMOHS 2266666G6656206650659 SLINN QOOE LY 33838 VJA ISVI SWIL RBSSLINA 0001 OL 03LIICOYd 38 OL Wiad JWYS STH X04 S31VS SNOIAIYd lt 3N 1 gt BS ANWVAWOD JHI YO4 LSVIINO4 SIIS 3H13 MITAYIAO S1SVJ3903j SIS 03H3133 Kk BM3IAM3A0 S1SVJ3903 SIMS 03HJ133J K 002 SIWYN ANIT LYOHS S3WVN NIT NNI PY YNT 4071704 3938 VJA ISV1 NOTLYWYOINT LITYLSIYNN SIWS S nOIA33d SNOLLIIYIS3Y ON3S 1xX3N 3H1 X03 ONIMOHS SLINN GOOG LY JUJA VIA 1SV1 WIL IWYS SIHI X04 STIS SNOIARd lt NIT gt SHINOWRESLXIN JHL 404 SLINA 000 OL 03133C03dJ 38 01 3V3ddV ANVdNOJ JHL 303 1SVJ3J303J S31VS JH S3WS 03HJ13J M3JIAM3AO S1SV3J3804 SIMS 03H3133 toQOOOOOSOOOOCOChOOOCGCSS OIAYYW 0313730 03404 S31YS FHI fINSW JOIH NOIIVN303NI SHI 9NI13I31S33 39V1S e0e YILNI SS33d 40 3311 318000 ONY ANII STHL OL 1103 NYJ 33S0 JHL ANE 1 2 1d8VS 1383833V18 d1IH CANIT YN V SI SIHI YILNI SS3j39d YO ANIT STHL OL 1104 1X31 HLIM AV1d33 PF IDHYS ANNIONIV 18 JOVSSIW OYYMYOJ ANII TA V SI STHL TW OL Ad 144 JOWSSIW OL Addy F SI STHL 1948S NOI1YJ01
13. a United States Patent Mousseau et al US006477529B1 10 Patent No 45 Date of Patent US 6 477 529 B1 Nov 5 2002 54 APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DYNAMICALLY LIMITING INFORMATION SENT TO A VIEWING DEVICE 75 Inventors Gary Mousseau Waterloo CA David Yach Waterloo CA Herb A Little Waterloo CA 73 Assignee Research In Motion Limited Waterloo CA Notice Subject to any disclaimer the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U S C 154 b by 0 days 21 Appl No 09 455 211 22 Filed Dec 6 1999 GHD IpteC gt e usasqa nee G06F 17 30 52 U S Chh u nuan ana aha 707 5 58 Field of Search 707 2 3 4 5 707 10 9 101 201 503 530 709 203 217 219 225 226 227 229 234 247 56 References Cited U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 5 159 592 A 10 1992 Perkins oo 370 401 5 327 426 A 7 1994 Dolin Jr et al 370 401 5 355 365 A 10 1994 Ehat et al 370 401 5 559 800 A 9 1996 Mousseau et al 370 401 6 314 425 B1 11 2001 Serbinis et al 707 10 FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS EP 0 483 547 Al 5 1992 WO 93 15572 8 1993 cat FETCHING STAGE A WO 9919988 4 1999 WO 9948312 9 1999 WO 9950974 10 1999 OTHER PUBLICATIONS Douglas E Comer Internetworking with TCP IP 1991 pp 4449 365 385 second edition vol I Sun Microsystem User manual for Unix OS Mar 2 1987 Section Screen Comma
14. ata comprising a database configured to store documents a control device configured to perform dynamic filtering of a user defined section of a document received from the database and a user interface and viewing device remotely coupled to the control device the user interface and viewing device being configured to convert user input based on selected portions of the document to filter signals and to transmit the filter signals to the control device so that the control device subsequently filters the document according to the filter signals and the interface and viewing device subsequently displays the filtered data 19 The system of claim 18 wherein the document server stores textual and graphical data and wherein the control device is configured to use the filter signals to dynamically filter user defined sections of the textual and graphical data 20 The system of claim 19 wherein the control device is a gateway device the user interface and viewing device is a wireless hand held viewing device and the document is an Internet web page 21 The system of claim 18 wherein the database is a world wide web WWW server and the document is a web page 22 A method comprising the steps of requesting a document through a wireless device coupled to a host device receiving the requested document at the host device from a document server filtering the received document using a predetermined set of filters filtering th
15. d reliable delivery of information When compression and encryption are used the compres sion and encryption support module 24B in the handheld device 22 matches up with the gateway devices compres sion and encryption support component 16C The byte code interpreter and decoder 24C operates to undo all the filtering and encoding preformed on the information by the gateway device 14 Once this component 24C has processed the information the information can be passed up for display and user interaction in the information viewer and user interface 26 When information arrives at the information viewer and user interface 26 it is received by the editor and browser screen support module 26A The editor and browser screen support module 26A processes the information so that it is presentable to the user in a viewable and readable form This component 26A includes a user interface API for screen manipulation special formatting highlighting inverse video and all other capabilities of the handheld device 22 that might be useful when displaying a large quantity of information in a readable form The user input and keyboard support module 26B is provided for the user to input commands to manipulate the data or information Turning now to FIG 3 a filter engine process 90 accord ing to a preferred embodiment of the present invention is set forth This process 90 includes a fetching stage 90A and first and second parts of a restricting stage 90
16. e received document using a dynamic filter based on user defined criteria transmitted to the host device from the wireless device transmitting the filtered document from the host device to the wireless device displaying the filtered document on the wireless device storing user input based on the displayed document converting the stored user input into the user defined filter criteria transmitting the user defined filter criteria to the host device and storing the user defined criteria at the host device to define the dynamic filter wherein the user defined criteria is based on a selected portion of the document and wherein subsequent requests for the document through the wireless device are filtered to remove the selected portion of the document 23 The method of claim 22 wherein the document server is a world wide web WWW server and the document is a web page 10 15 20 30 40 45 50 55 60 65 12 24 A method comprising the steps of fetching a document from a document server restricting the fetched document using fixed criteria restricting the fetched document using dynamic user defined criteria transmitting the restricted document to a viewing device receiving user input based on the restricted document and converting the user input into the user defined criteria wherein the user defined criteria is based on a selected portion of the document 25 The method of claim 24 wherein
17. fferent embodiments and its several details are capable of modifications in various respects all without departing from the spirit of the invention Accordingly the drawings and description of the preferred embodiment are to be regarded as illustrative in nature and not restrictive US 6 477 529 B1 3 BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art in view of the accompanying drawings where FIG 1 is a block diagram of the components in the gateway and handheld device in a preferred embodiment of the present invention FIG 2 is a more detailed block diagram of the compo nents in the gateway and handheld device of FIG 1 FIG 3 is a flow diagram of a dynamic filtering process according to a preferred embodiment of the present inven tion FIG 4 shows a graphical user interface GUI display on the handheld device of FIG 1 during a first and second stage of the restricting process according to a preferred embodi ment of the present invention FIG 5 is a flow diagram that illustrates the method performed by the handheld device according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention and FIG 6 is a flow diagram that illustrates the method performed by the gateway device according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT FIG 1 shows a system 10 according to a first embodiment of the present invention This system
18. he WWW server over a computer network wherein the gateway device comprises a fetch and cache component that retrieves and stores information from a web page on the WWW server a restricting stage that removes at least one predeter mined data type from the information retrieved from the web page to generate a filtered output means for transmitting the filtered output to the wire less device an additional restricting stage that receives a filtering command from the wireless device and that uses the filtering command to remove additional data from the information retrieved from the web page and generate the filtered output and wherein the filtering command is generated by the wireless device in response to user input made by selecting a portion of the web page to be removed in subsequent transmissions from the gateway device 29 The system of claim 28 wherein the gateway device further comprises a compression and encryption module that compresses and encrypts the filtered output prior to transmission to the wireless device US 6 477 529 B1 13 14 30 The system of claim 28 wherein the pre determined 33 The system of claim 28 wherein the transmitting data type is advanced HTML commands means includes a wireless delivery module that adds proto 31 The system of claim 28 wherein the pre determined col information for delivery over a wireless network data type is Java content 32 The system of claim 28 wherein the trans
19. he filter storage area 124 for a user defined filter to apply to the data stream 112 If such a user defined filter is found then it is applied to the filtered HTML only data stream 112 to form a user filtered content data stream 116 This data stream 116 is then sent to the byte code converter at step 118 for translation into a format compatible with wireless deliv ery When a user receives a new piece of information and wants to limit what is viewed the second part of restricting stage 90C occurs Keeping in mind that no restricting of information is performed the first time that the data passes through the system once the user performs the restricting steps 208 214 in FIG 4 and 310 324 in FIG 5 on the handheld device restricting commands B are sent to the gateway device 14 for identification at step 120 The com mands C see also steps 426 and 428 in FIG 6 to restrict or un restrict content are provided to the file storage com ponent 18 at step 122 for long term storage on a disk and or memory 124 These commands C are later retrieved during step 114 and applied in the first part of the restricting stage 90B when the user subsequently requests this information FIG 4 shows the sequential graphical user interface GUI views during the process 90 There are two stages shown in FIG 4 a first stage 200A in which the information is retrieved and a second stage 200B in which the infor mation is restricted During the first
20. imited viewing surfaces limited memory available slower process ing speeds and limited user inputs in comparison to large desktop computer systems These devices may also com municate over a bandwidth limited data network such as a wireless packet data network a cellular network using a digital packet data protocol or they may use a limited speed modem to download at speeds between 9600 and 28K bits per second bps For these reasons it is desirable to limit the data these devices receive over the network or through the modem particularly when receiving large data files such as web pages that may include text graphics animations multimedia files or other interactive elements A known method for limiting data transfer to such a viewing device involves restricting the transmittal of graphic information By providing a specific configuration setting available on most Internet browsers a user can specify that only text information is fetched by the browser The graphi cal portions of the web page are left behind This method is indiscriminate however and leaves the user with little useful control simply an on or off switch for changing the type of information viewed In many cases there are pieces of text that are not desired in the information stream and pieces of graphics that are desired in the information stream but the user has no control over this situation Asecond known method which is used more commonly in a wireless e
21. in the storage area 18 124 for later retrieval when the user requests the same information page The invention has been described with reference to pre ferred embodiments Those skilled in the art will perceive improvements changes and modifications Such improvements changes and modifications are intended to be covered by the appended claims We claim 1 A method of controlling viewed information in a document retrieved from a database based on commands stored in a gateway device to limit the quantity of informa tion sent to a handheld device comprising the steps of receiving the document from the database with the hand held device establishing information in the document to be restricted by a user using a special editing command with the handheld device to select the information in the document to be restricted by the user passing a set of commands to the gateway device to restrict subsequent retrievals of the document from the database by the handheld device identifying a subsequent retrieval of the document from the database by the handheld device using the gateway device and performing filtering during the subsequent retrieval of the document in order to remove the restricted information from the document 2 The method of claim 1 wherein the database is a world wide web WWW server and the document is a web page 3 A system for limiting data transmitted to a wireless handheld viewing device from a gateway
22. match the informa tion being given to this user the information is sent along as is to the handheld device 22 at step 412 As shown in FIG 3 other automatic filtering operations can also be performed on the information to remove bandwidth intensive elements such as graphics and animations Step 414 in FIG 6 sets forth the beginning of the restricting stage 400B in which the gateway 14 receives commands from the user that are used to affect user filters The first check in the gateway device 14 is to determine if the command is for an unrestriction request at step 416 If so then the restriction commands are found and deleted from US 6 477 529 B1 9 storage 18 124 or marked as temporarily inactive at step 418 If not then the system checks to see if the command is a content restriction command list at step 420 If it is not then the system checks to see if the command is some other command at step 422 If the command is a new content restriction command list at step 420 then the gateway device 14 checks to see if there is already a stored set of restriction commands for this same information page at step 424 If there is not then the command information is saved at step 426 in the information storage area 18 124 for later retrieval when the user requests the same information page Otherwise a merge of the previous commands and the new commands is performed at step 428 and the resulting merged set of restriction commands are saved
23. mation decoder and presentation component 11 The system of claim 10 wherein the information decoder and presentation component comprises a wireless transport layer coupled to the gateway device and a byte code interpreter and decoder coupled between the wireless transport layer and the information viewer and user interface 12 The system of claim 11 wherein the information decoder and presentation component further comprises a compression and encryption support module coupled between the wireless transport layer and the byte code interpreter and decoder 13 The system of claim 10 wherein the information viewer and user interface comprises an editor and browser screen support module coupled to the information decoder and presentation component and a user input and keyboard support module coupled to the editor and browser screen support module US 6 477 529 B1 11 14 The system of claim 10 wherein the handheld device further comprises a handheld radio code and wireless sup port module coupled between the information decoder and presentation component and the gateway device 15 The system of claim 5 wherein the document server is an Internet server 16 The system of claim 5 wherein the document server is an Intranet server 17 The system of claim 5 wherein the document server is a world wide web WWW server and the document is a web page 18 A system for dynamically filtering user defined sec tions of d
24. mitting 5 means includes a wireless transport layer OR
25. nals wherein the gateway device is configured to dynamically restrict the flow of information transmitted from the document server such that user selected portions of the document are removed in subsequent transmissions of the document from the document server to the handheld device 6 The system of claim 5 wherein the gateway device comprises an information translator coupled between the document server and the handheld device and a filter and memory coupled to the information translator 7 The system of claim 6 wherein the information trans lator comprises a Hypertext Transfer Protocol HTTP fetch and cache coupled to the source of information a filter and transformation engine coupled to the HTTP fetch and cache and a wireless transport layer coupled between the filter and transformation engine and the handheld device 8 The system of claim 7 wherein the information trans lator further comprises a compression and encryption sup port module coupled between the filter and transformation engine and the wireless transport layer 9 The system of claim 6 wherein the gateway device further comprises a wireless delivery methods component coupled between the information translator and the handheld device 10 The system of claim 5 wherein the handheld device comprises an information decoder and presentation component coupled to the gateway device and an information viewer and user interface coupled to the infor
26. nce information arrives into the browser a notification tone is played following a user configured setting This setting is different from the message list so the user can determine if e mail or Internet traffic has arrived In a normal viewing mode of the message the user is simply moving the cursor across the displayed information as if viewing an e mail message Full link names are not shown only small indicators to make the information more readable Invoking the menu 210 provides the option of marking the information to be restricted in future fetches of the information The user can also follow a link if the cursor is on a link or expand or shrink link names for readability When in the restricting stage 200B the restricting com mands used by the handheld device 22 to filter content use the original section identifier sent by the information trans lator 16 In the creation of the original text each section of the HTML page either each line or paragraph is given a tag or a section identifier When the user is in the marking mode 212 the marked region jumps in sections boundaries as defined by the original section identifiers sent by the information translator 16 In the marking mode the user marks a section and presses the backspace key or ALT Backspace key to remove the information The user can also press the Enter key to delete the text or the backspace key since this is the default After the user perform
27. nd pp 1 12 Fifth Nordic Seminar on Digital Mobile Radio Communi cations Dec 1992 Helsinki Finland pp 389 395 XP458679 Chakraborty Data Interworking with GSM cited by examiner Primary Examiner Diane D Mizrahi Assistant Examiner Apu M Mofiz 74 Attorney Agent or Firm Jones Day Reavis amp Pogue Krishna K Pathiyal Esq Charles B Meyer Esq 57 ABSTRACT A system and method for transporting user restricted data from a gateway device to a handheld viewing device is provided The gateway device includes an information translator content filters and storage The information trans lator delivers content from an information database coupled to the gateway to the handheld viewing device A viewing component of the handheld device receives all possible data from the gateway device that the handheld device is capable of viewing The user of the handheld device is then able to manually select certain portions of data through a user interface Once the selection is complete a series of com ments are returned to the gateway device from the handheld device so that a subsequent viewing corresponds only to that information selected by the user 33 Claims 6 Drawing Sheets f 90 WIRELESS DEVICE HOST RECEIVES REQUESTS FOR DATA INFORMATION SOURCE FULFILLS THE REQUEST AND RETURNS THE DATA TO THE GATEWAY GATEWAY RECEIVES FULL HTML WITH GRAPHICS ALL TAGS AND EMBEDDED JAVA CONTENT WIREL
28. ng information The filter and transfor mation engine 16B operatively performs a filtering process and information fetch and restrict method described here US 6 477 529 B1 5 inafter with reference to FIGS 3 and 5 6 This engine 16B allows the handheld device 22 to dynamically update a plurality of information filters to match the user s require ments for the transmitted information The compression and encryption support module 16C is provided to allow for compression and encryption on the data before it is given to the wireless transport layer 16D This compression and encryption support module 16C may optionally be omitted from the information translator 16 The wireless transport layer 16D is required to deliver the filtered and compressed and or encrypted information to the user The transport layer 16D also ensures that multiple packets are sent and received securely without damage or loss of the information The wireless delivery methods module 30 in the gateway device 14 and the corresponding handheld radio code and wireless support module 32 in the handheld device 22 on either end of the wireless connection provide the protocol information for the network packet formats and delivery methods of the particular wireless network 20 In the handheld device 22 the wireless transport layer 24A matches the wireless transport layer 16D on the gate way device 14 Both transport layers 24A and 16D must be present for end to en
29. nvironment involves new standards for con trolling the content being delivered to the handheld viewing device One such new standard is HDML which was intended to replace the universally accepted HTML format for delivering content to handheld viewers This approach has some industry backing but fails to allow users access to all Internet and Intranet information Another known method for solving the wireless Internet content problem is to spoof the Inter network Protocol IP and Transmission Control Protocol TCP so that they partially work over the wireless link This spoofing method however often leads to a failure of both the protocols and the device to display all the information Alternatively several attempts have been made at using a wireless proxy to eliminate using both TCP and IP over the wireless network A wireless proxy is a computer that terminates a TCP IP connection on one end and a wireless connection on the other end The most common use of a 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 2 proxy is as a TCP IP firewall which is used in most companies networks today This proxy method removes the TCPAP protocol from running over the wireless network but leaves the actual data transferred untouched This type of proxy has limited ability to further limit the higher level information being sent to the user and in particular the bandwidth heavy graphics and multimedia file
30. ot compressed and or encrypted then the compression and encryption support module 16C may be omitted A wireless delivery methods module 30 is coupled to the wireless transport layer 16D As seen in FIG 2 a wireless network 20 couples the wireless delivery methods module 30 in the gateway device 14 to a handheld radio code and wireless support module 32 in the handheld device 22 This handheld radio code and wireless support module 32 is coupled to the information decoder and presentation device 24 through a wireless transport layer 24A The information decoder and presen tation device 24 further includes a compression and encryp tion support module 24B and a byte code interpreter and decoder 24C If the information is not compressed and or encrypted then the compression and encryption support module 24B may be omitted An editor and browser screen support module 26A in the information viewer and user interface 26 is coupled to the byte code interpreter and decoder 24C Additional components of the information viewer and user interface 26 include a user input and keyboard support module 26B The information translator 16 may include an HTTP fetch and cache component 16A which is standard in the Internet industry In other implementations this machine 16 could include an Application Programming Interface API method for accessing local database files directory LAN information and corporate data or could include other methods of retrievi
31. s embedded in most web pages Still another known method for limiting information sent to a portable viewing device is to have users pre define the information sites they intend to access using their portable viewing device In this method a user must pick ahead of time every site to be accessed and must select the informa tion to be transferred when connecting with the wireless viewer This selection is typically done on a large desktop computer system where visibility memory CPU speed and keyboard input are not restricted The challenge for the user however is to have foreknowledge of every site to be accessed This method thus falls short of offering the user a general purpose browser for a wireless device in which the user maintains dynamic control over what information is transmitted to the wireless devices SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A system and method for transporting user restricted data from a gateway device to a handheld viewing device is provided The gateway device includes an information translator content filters and storage The information trans lator delivers content to the gateway device from an infor mation database coupled to the gateway via a network A viewing component of the handheld device receives from the gateway device all possible data that the handheld device is capable of viewing The user is able to manually select certain portions of data through a user interface in the handheld device the selected
32. s these operations on the sections to be deleted including any links the user can select the menu and pick the Send Restrictions menu item This sends a command with the deleted sections to the information translator 16 for restriction the next time this information page is requested At any time while viewing the information on the handheld device 22 the user can also select the Unrestricted Information menu item and remove any restriction commands that might exist on the informa tion translator 16 FIG 5 shows the preferred method 300 under which the handheld device 22 operates to provide the user with the ability to restrict information received from the gateway 14 The method includes two stages an information request stage 300A and an information restriction stage 300B The user first decides whether or not to view information at step 302 In the preferred embodiment this information is Internet based or Intranet based information The user enters a request preferably by entering a URL on the user input and keyboard support module 26B which is provided to the information decoder 24C for preparation and format ting at step 304 to the gateway device 14 Once the format 10 15 20 40 45 50 55 60 65 8 ting is complete the request is transmitted to the gateway device 14 at step 306 via the network connection 20 20 Some time later the gateway device 14 transmits the information at step
33. stage 200A the infor mation is retrieved by the user through the e mail interface as shown in 202 In this screen a link to the information is shown in bold within the context of other information The user then selects to follow the link as shown in 204 This causes a request to be sent to the gateway device 14 The screen 206 is then displayed to indicate a request is pending since it could take seconds or minutes to get the information over the network Once the information has been received it is displayed in an information browser like format 208 At any time the user can select the menu and pick the Start Marking menu item as seen in 210 and begin the second stage 200B the information restriction stage During the restriction stage 200B the user positions a moveable cursor across the information to be restricted such as line of text or a particular graphic as seen in 212 As the cursor is dragged across the text it changes the appearance of the information so that the user can visually identify the information selected for restriction Once a delete key or some other command key is pressed the information is restricted from the current view as seen in 214 The user then continues to scan the received data to determine whether other information should be similarly restricted Once the user exits this screen 214 or selects a menu to close this screen a series of restriction commands associated with the restricted informa
34. system 10 the information source 12 is a reposi tory of the information that the user of the handheld device desires to access for display An information translator 16 such as a proxy server is used as a gateway to accept a connection from the network 20 and in turn to make a connection to the information source 12 to retrieve the information desired Preferably the connection between the information translator 16 and the information source is a TCP IP connection and the information source is a web server containing a plurality of web pages As is known in the art a proxy accepts a connection from a device and opens another connection on behalf of the device to allow the device to communicate with other devices or systems 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 4 indirectly To assist the information translator 16 in its task of getting information and preparing it for transmission to the handheld device 22 a content filter and storage area 18 is provided which is coupled to the information translator 16 The content filter and storage area 18 can be located on the same machine as the information translator 16 in another location across a local area network LAN or even in a node cluster of fault tolerant storage device Communication across the network connection 20 is facilitated on the handheld device 22 by the information decoder and presentation device 24 This device 24 converts requests from the
35. tion are sent to the gateway device 14 These restriction commands are used by the gateway to determine whether or not to subsequently send certain information elements of the requested information During the viewing of the screens 202 214 in FIG 4 the basic e mail presents the Universal Resource Locator URL link as bold faced characters as seen in 202 When the US 6 477 529 B1 7 cursor is positioned on any character of the URL link the enter key can be used as a hot key for jumping to the link Otherwise if the user presses a roller wheel or some other selection mechanism of the handheld device while on any URL link a new default item appears as seen in 204 In the case where the user is positioned on a URL link the command Follow the Link is the default as seen in 204 This is similar to attachment processing when the user is positioned on an attachment and the Open Attachment menu option is the default To identify the URL link the e mail server scans all message bodies and looks for HTTP or WWW identifiers with other special characters such as P P and The fetching screen 206 appears when the interface is invoked from the message view or when the user selects the Follow the Link menu option in 204 In this case the program has requested the URL and is waiting for it to be returned If the user is fetching a random URL then the program prompts for the URL name before issuing the fetch O
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