Establishing a call session during an advertisement time period

• US 20070271137A1
• Filed: 05/22/2006
• Published: 11/22/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/22/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Clearinghouse LLC (RPX Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nortel Networks Limited (Nortel Networks Corporation)
• Inventors: Graves, Alan F., Goodwill, Dominic J., Vezza, Brian D.
• Granted Patent: US 7,620,390 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.390
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0239 Online discounts or incentives
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0272 Period of advertisement exposure
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1083 In-session procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1094 Inter-user-equipment sessions transfer or sharing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/611 for multicast or broadcast systems for broadcast or conference H04L12/18; arrangements for broadcast or distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/00; arrangements for broadcast applications with a direct linkage to broadcast information or to broadcast space-time H04H60/00; selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS], H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2668 Creating a channel for a dedicated end-user group, e.g. insertion of targeted commercials based on end-user profiles information retrieval from the Internet by querying with filtering and personalisation G06F16/9535; arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast H04H20/10; push services over packet-switching network H04L12/1859; adaptation of message content in packet-switching networks H04L51/063
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41407 embedded in a portable device, e.g. video client on a mobile phone, PDA, laptop constructional details of equipment or arrangements specially adapted for portable computer application G06F1/1626; arrangements specially adapted for mobile receivers in broadcast systems H04H20/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02

Abstract

To communicate between terminal devices, a time period of overlap between a first time slot of first advertisement content provided to a first terminal device and a second time slot of second advertisement content provided to a second terminal device is determined. An indication is sent for establishment of a call session between the first terminal device and second terminal device during the time period of overlap.

Claims

1. A method of communications between terminal devices, comprising:

determining a time period of overlap between a first time slot of first advertisement content provided to a first terminal device and a second time slot of second advertisement content provided to a second terminal device; and

sending an indication for establishment of a call session between the first terminal device and second terminal device during the time period of overlap.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the time period of overlap is performed by accessing schedules associated with the first and second advertisement content.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein determining the time period of overlap is performed by accessing the schedules stored in one or more ad servers.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein sending the indication comprises one of:

sending a first message to one of the first terminal device and second terminal device to cause the one of the first terminal device and second terminal device to transmit a call request for establishing the call session; and

sending a second message to one of the first terminal device and second terminal device to enable the one of the first terminal device and second terminal device to start establishing the call session in response to detecting a start event.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein sending the first message causes the one of the first terminal device and second terminal device to send a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Invite request.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining is performed by a call manager separate from the first and second terminal devices.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the time period of overlap between the first time slot of the first advertisement content and the second time slot of the second advertisement content comprises determining the time period of overlap between the first and second time slots of first and second advertisement content contained in respective first and second information content to be presented by the respective first and second terminal devices.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the time period of overlap between the first time slot of the first advertisement content and the second time slot of the second advertisement content comprises determining the time period of overlap between the first and second time slots of first and second advertisement content contained in respective first and second television channels.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein sending the indication for establishment of the call session comprises sending the indication for establishment of the call session in which traffic relating to the call session is presented by the first and second terminal devices instead of respective first and second advertisement content during the call session.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein sending the indication for establishment of the call session comprises sending the indication for establishment of the call session containing voice traffic over an Internet Protocol network.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a request from at least one of the first and second terminal devices expressing an interest in establishing the call session during advertisement time slots,

wherein the determining and sending acts are performed in response to receiving the request.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether the time period of overlap is greater than a predetermined interval,

wherein sending the indication is in response to determining that the time period of overlap is greater than the predetermined interval.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising disabling sending of the indication in response to determining that the time period of overlap is not greater than the predetermined interval.

14. An article comprising at least one storage medium containing instructions that when executed cause a first terminal device to:

receive an indication that a call session with at least a second terminal device is to be established during a time period of overlap between a first advertisement time slot and at least a second advertisement time slot; and

based on the indication, send a call request to establish the call session; and

establish the call session according to the call request, wherein traffic associated with the call session is presented to the first terminal device and at least the second terminal device during the call session in place of or in addition to advertisement content.

15. The article of claim 14, wherein the instructions when executed cause the first terminal device to further receive first information content, wherein the first information content contains advertisement content in the first advertisement time slot, and wherein the second time slot is for advertisement content contained in second information content presented to the second terminal device.

16. The article of claim 15, wherein receiving the first information content comprises receiving video content.

17. The article of claim 15, wherein receiving the first information content comprises receiving Internet Protocol television content.

18. The article of claim 14, wherein the instructions when executed cause the first terminal device to further:

in response to detecting an end of the time period of overlap, present a prompt to a user to ask whether the user desires to continue the call session past the time period of overlap.

19. A system comprising:

an interface to a network; and

a controller to;

receive a request from at least a first terminal device expressing an interest regarding establishment of a call session between the first terminal device and at least one other terminal device during an overlapping time period of advertisement time slots of information content presented to the respective terminal devices;

in response to the request, determine whether the overlapping time period exists; and

in response to determining that the overlapping time period exists, send an indication for establishment of the call session between the terminal devices during the overlapping time period.

20. The system of claim 19, the controller to further send information regarding the call session to a record keeping server to enable billing for the call session.