Various communication services have been provided in accordance with development of broadband services. Such services include, for example, internet telephones and instant message (IM) services.
For example, when a telephone call is made through internet telephones, the communication cannot be established when one of the users on the other side, a communicatee, is not accessing the network; therefore, the user at each end is required to recognize as to whether the other user is logged on the network. Therefore, presence indication is suggested. The presence refers to functionality to achieve information concerning status of the user at the other end of the communication. Leading techniques to achieve the presence include SIP (Session Initiation Protocol). SIP is one of communication protocols which can be used in internet telephones based on VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).
In recent years, such presence-enabled functionality has been installed in mobile phones. With the presence-enabled functionality installed in the mobile phones can allow a user to recognize in advance availability of the user at the other end who may be busy on another line, out of the office, or at a meeting. Therefore, the user can check the availability of the communicatee at the other end so that the user can contact the communicatee in a most preferable method such as in audio phone call, an instant message, or an e-mail.
In a conventional presence managing system, for example, a terminal device A requests a presence server C to disclose the presence information of a terminal device B or another terminal device (in other words, register the terminal device B or another terminal device as a presence-enabled target in a list equipped in the terminal device A) so that information concerning update of the presence information is PUSH-delivered to the terminal device A when the presence information of the disclosing terminal is updated.
In some cases of a presence managing system, for example, the terminal device A may view presence information of a plurality of presence disclosing terminals. In Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 2005-135250, a terminal device, having an area to display the presence information of the plurality of disclosing terminals being variable, is disclosed. Meanwhile, Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 2005-135250 discloses a configuration, in which a display/hide (flag) setting of presence information can be determined by a user, in which a display area can be enlarged/reduced (or scrollable/unscrollable can be switched) according to an amount of the presence information to be displayed, and in which presence disclosing terminals online can be selectively displayed.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds