Pro-Active Features for Telephony

• US 20070223672A1
• Filed: 05/29/2007
• Published: 09/27/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mitel Networks Corporation
• Original Assignee: Mitel Networks Corporation
• Inventors: Gray, Thomas
• Granted Patent: US 7,471,782 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/201.20
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/2044 Group features, e.g. closed user group
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42093 Notifying the calling party of information on the called or connected party
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42314 in private branch exchanges
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42365 Presence services providing information on the willingness to communicate or the ability to communicate in terms of media capability or network connectivity
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42374 where the information is provided to a monitoring entity such as a potential calling party or a call processing server
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/56 Arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities video conference systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation

Abstract

A system is provided for pro-actively suggesting communication features to users, comprising a tuple space for facilitating collaboration among software agents, a plurality of device agents for controlling operation of associated communication devices for respective ones of the users, and a plurality of user agents representing a plurality of users, each of the user agents (i) facilitating creation, by a user desirous of communicating, of groups of users to be communicated with, (ii) poking tuples to the tuple space indicative of each user'"'"'s availability for communication; (iii) peeking anti-tuples to the tuple space for eliciting communication availability of respective ones of the users in the groups of users to be communicated with and in response causing associated device agents to display via respective ones of the devices the aforementioned availability to the user desirous of communicating, and to effect communication between the user desirous of communicating and a selected one of the respective users who is indicated as being available for communication.

Claims

1. A computer readable medium embodying instructions executable by a processor to perform a method of pro-actively presenting communication features to users, comprising:

facilitating creation, by an associated user, of groups of other ones of said users to be communicated with;

poking tuples to said tuple space indicative of user availability for communication; and

peeking anti-tuples to said space for eliciting said user availability for a selected one of said groups and in response causing device agents to display said availability via associated devices and to effect communication between said associated user and a selected one of the available users from the selected group.

2. A processor method of pro-actively presenting communication features to users, comprising:

facilitating creation, by an associated user, of groups of other ones of said users to be communicated with;

poking tuples to said tuple space indicative of user availability for communication; and

peeking anti-tuples to said tuple space for eliciting said user availability for a selected one of said groups and in response causing device agents to display said availability via associated devices and to effect communication between said associated user and a selected one of the available users from the selected group.

3. In a system for facilitating communication among a plurality of users via respective communication devices, a processor method comprising:

facilitating creation, by an associated user, of at least one group of other ones of said users to be communicated with;

storing an indication of each user'"'"'s availability for communication;

eliciting communication availability of respective ones of said users in said at least one group and in response displaying via respective ones of said devices said availability to said user desirous of communicating; and

effecting communication between said user desirous of communicating and a selected one of said respective users who is indicated as being available for communication.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising displaying on said respective devices a list of said respective ones of said users, an indicator of availability associated with each of said respective ones of said users, and a button associated with each of said respective ones of said users for initiating communication between said user desirous of communicating and said selected one of said respective ones of said users.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising automatically selecting said at least one group of display based on information relating to the current activities of the user desirous of communicating.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said information is derived from one or more sources including at least one of location, computer files in use, project being worked on, and information in an electronic calendar of the user desirous of communicating.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein said information is associated with a project name field in said group.

8. A user interface for a phone, comprising:

a plurality of buttons for initiating calls to other users; and

a plurality of indicators adjacent respective ones of said buttons for indicating call availability of said other users.

9. The user interface of claim 8, wherein said phone is a physical telephone and said a plurality of indicators are light emitting diodes.

10. The user interface of claim 8, wherein said phone is a software application on a personal computer and said plurality of indicators are implemented via a graphical user interface on a display of said personal computer.