Proxy Server for Determining Presence Status of a User (Avaya) - Patent Application - PRIOR ART REQUEST

Question

US20130304913

Filing date - Jul 16, 2013

Priority date - Sep 26, 2003

Have you seen anything prior to Sept 26, 2003 which relates to Programmable Proxies for Determining a Presence Status of a User:

1. A method comprising:

   • Obtaining presence information from a plurality of presence data stores, wherein the presence information provides a clue as to a presence status of a user;

   • Translating the presence information into a standard format, yielding translated presence information; and

   • Determining the presence status based on the translated presence information.

It seems to me that Voxhub has prior art. For example, the Herenow engine.

Link to Google Prior Art Search -- Find Prior Art

Answer 1

Well, a quick patent search reveals existing patents for parts of this prior to the date. I think the interesting part of the claim is that it deals with having multiple devices that a user may be present on. This is one prior patent that deals with the issue of messaging an multiple devices http://www.google.com/patents/US5928325.

I think this could also be relevant http://www.google.com/patents/US20050074101 in dealing with the idea of not being available in one device/mode and so looking for others. This one also http://www.google.com/patents/US20020065894 has the concept of globally being available but actually being on any of a number of devices.

Answer 2

The patent application cites one reference for SIP & presence (though the date provided looks odd, at any rate this is prior art already known at the time of the application):

See, J. Rosenberg et al., “SIP Extensions for Presence,” IETF Internet Draft, dragft-rosenberg-impp-presence-00.txt (Jun. 15, 1300).

However, the application does not mention other pre-Sept. 2003 SIP presence documents, and these might be fruitful places to look. In particular:

RFC3863 defined a standard Presence Information Data Format (PIDF). The earliest date I can find for the draft is May 2003:

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-impp-cpim-pidf-08

Also possibly relevant (and also not cited in the patent application) is a Presence Event Package for SIP, Jan. 2003, with a Presence User Agent (PUA), which manipulates presence information for a "presentity" (presence entity):

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-simple-presence-10

If these seem promising, the documents would of course need to be aligned with the limitations of the claim. If nothing else, perhaps these ought to have been cited in the patent application.