System and Method for Providing Telephony Services Using Proxies

• US 20080013708A1
• Filed: 09/27/2007
• Published: 01/17/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Brown & Michaels PC, Joseph Mcintyre, Michael Paolini, Scott Winters, Victor Moore
• Original Assignee: Brown & Michaels PC, Joseph Mcintyre, Michael Paolini, Scott Winters, Victor Moore
• Inventors: Brown, Michael, Moore, Victor, Winters, Scott, McIntyre, Joseph, Paolini, Michael
• Granted Patent: US 7,567,554 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/202.01
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1831 Tracking arrangements for later retrieval, e.g. recording contents, participants activities or behavior, network status
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/00 User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42221 Conversation recording systems at the subscriber's set H04M1/656
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/563 User guidance or feature selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0054 where the data service is an electronic mail service
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/1235 where one of the core networks is a wireless network
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/126 Interworking of session control protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/128 Details of addressing, directories or routing tables

Abstract

A system and method for a proxy service to provide telephone conferencing services and personal telephony services. Users can participate in the conference by connecting through different types of networks using a device having one or more types of communication lines connected to the proxy service. A primary user can request the proxy to call each one of the users and establish the conference. The primary user may accomplish this through a data line using data requests or though a voice line using voice requests. Typically, the primary user provides a telephone number for each user. The primary user can also provide with specific times of when calls should be placed, identification information for each user, the type of conference, and other conference parameters.

Claims

1. A computer program product stored on a computer operable media for using a proxy service to manage telephone call participants, said computer program product comprising:

means for connecting each of the call participants to one another through a proxy service computer system, wherein the proxy service computer system and each of the participants is connected to a common network;

means for receiving a plurality of voice inputs from the participants, wherein the voice inputs include voice data;

means for sending the voice data to the other participants through the common network;

means for storing the voice data in a memory area accessible by the proxy service computer system;

means for receiving a retrieval request from one of the participants;

means for retrieving data from the memory area in response to the retrieval request; and

means for transmitting the retrieved data from the proxy service computer system to the participant that sent the retrieval request through the common network.

2. The computer program product as described in claim 1 further comprising:

means for retrieving a telephone number and a connection time for one or more of the participants prior to the connecting;

means for dialing the retrieved telephone number at the connection time; and

means for connecting the dialed participant to the proxy service computer system in response to the dialed participant answering the call.

3. The computer program product as described in claim 1 further comprising:

means for retrieving a participant type, wherein there are at least two different types of participants; and

means for providing one or more different services to one of the participants based upon the participant'"'"'s type, wherein at least one of the services is selected from the group consisting of a call playback service, a call rewind service, a call fast forward service, a call pause service, a query service, a stop service, a bookmark service, and an establish new proxy call service.

4. The computer program product as described in claim 3 further comprising:

means for billing one or more of the participants depending upon the services provided to the billed participants.

5. The computer program product as described in claim 1 further comprising:

means for receiving a connection request from one of the participants prior to the connecting of requesting participant to one or more other participants;

means for retrieving authentication data corresponding to the requesting participant; and

means for authenticating the connection request, wherein the connecting is performed in response to the authentication of the requesting participant.

6. The computer program product as described in claim 1, wherein the voice inputs include voice commands, the computer program product further comprising:

means for receiving a voice command from one of the participants without sending the received voice command to the other participants;

means for converting the voice command to a textual command; and

means for executing the textual command.

7. The computer program product as described in claim 1 wherein the common network is selected from the group consisting of a public switched telephone network, a mobile telephone network, a packet based global computer network, a local area network, and a wide area network.