Systems and Methods to Prioritize a Queue

• US 20070165608A1
• Filed: 04/03/2007
• Published: 07/19/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/10/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: YellowPages.com LLC (Mudrick Capital Management LP)
• Original Assignee: UTBK, Inc.
• Inventors: HIRSON, Ron, FABER, Scott, ALTBERG, Ebbe, VAN DER LINDEN, Sean, MANCA, Paul
• Application Number:
  US11/696,159
• Publication Number:
  US 20070165608A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/105 Financial transactions and auctions, e.g. bidding auctioneering devices in packet switching networks H04L12/1804
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/523 with call distribution or queueing
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/0045 involving hybrid, i.e. a mixture of public and private, or multi-vendor systems

Abstract

Methods and apparatuses to prioritize a queue of waiting requests which are queued to be process sequentially. In one embodiment, a method includes: receiving one or more price bids on queuing priority; and determining an order of a plurality of pending requests based on at least the one or more price bids.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving one or more price bids on queuing priority; and

determining an order of a plurality of pending requests based on at least the one or more price bids.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the order is further based on reception times of a subset of the requests when the subset has a same price bid on queuing priority.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the order is further based on reception times of a subset of the requests when the subset has no price bid on queuing priority.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the pending requests are to be process sequentially according to the order.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more price bids are determined during a pendency of corresponding requests.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to a request being selected for processing, charging a priority fee based on a price bid on the queuing priority for the request.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the requests comprise requests for a communication connection with a communicatee;

and the method further comprises, in response to an opportunity to make a communication connection with the communicatee;

initiating a communication connection with a requester to establish a communication connection between the requester and the communicatee;

charging the requester a priority fee based on a price bid of the requester for the queuing priority; and

charging the requester a service fee specified by the communicatee.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the initiating of a communication connection with the requester to establish a communication connection between the requester and the communicatee comprises:

a connection provider establishing a first Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call with a telecommunication carrier which bridges the first VoIP call to a public switched telephone network (PSTN) to the requester;

the connection provider establishing a second Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call with a telecommunication carrier which bridges the second VoIP call to a public switched telephone network (PSTN) to the communicatee; and

connecting the first and second VoIP calls.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein a first virtual softphone of the telecommunication carrier terminates the first VoIP call for bridging onto a public switched telephone network (PSTN);

a second virtual softphone of the telecommunication carrier terminates the second VoIP call for bridging onto a public switched telephone network (PSTN); and

the connecting the first and second VoIP calls comprises;

causing the first and second softphones to establish a direct media connection which does not go through the connection provider.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the service fee is based on a time duration of the communication connection between the requester and the communicatee.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the service fee is based on a package purchased by the requester which allows the requester to have the communication connection between the requester and the communicatee for up to a time period specified by the package.

12. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

estimating a waiting period for the opportunity; and

presenting the estimated waiting period in an interface to receive a price bid on the queuing priority for one of the plurality of requests.

13. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

estimating a plurality of waiting periods for the plurality of requests respectively; and

presenting the estimated waiting periods in an interface to receive a price bid on the queuing priority for one of the plurality of requests.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the plurality of waiting periods are estimated based on communication times requested by the requests.

15. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

determining the priority fee based on a price bid of a next requester determined according to the order.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the priority fee is one increment above the price bid of the next requester.

17. The method of claim 7, wherein the communication connection comprises a phone connection.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the phone connection is at least partially over a packet switched network.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the requests comprise requests for a communication connection with a communicatee for a pre-determined time slot.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein a length of the time slot is pre-determined;

and a time when the time slot is available is not pre-determined.

21. A machine readable medium containing instructions which when executed on a data processing system cause the system to perform a method, comprising:

receiving one or more price bids on queuing priority; and

determining an order of a plurality of pending requests based on at least the one or more price bids.

22. A data processing system, comprising:

means for receiving one or more price bids on queuing priority; and

means for determining an order of a plurality of pending requests based on at least the one or more price bids.