Multi-conferencing capability

• US 20090086952A1
• Filed: 09/28/2007
• Published: 04/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Avaya Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Avaya Technology LLC (Avaya Incorporated)
• Inventors: Geppert, Birgit A., Roessler, Frank M.
• Granted Patent: US 8,204,195 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/204.10
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/576 associated with a pictorial or graphical representation
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/38 Displays
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/42 Graphical user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/5018 Initiating a conference during a two-party conversation, i.e. three-party service or three-way call
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/62 user interface aspects of conference calls
• 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: H04M 3/563 User guidance or feature selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/564 whereby the feature is a sub-conference

Abstract

A system and method for providing the capability to simultaneously manage multiple conference calls, move participants in the conference calls from one conference call to another and subdivide or join multiple conference calls together, and the like, wherein a participant seeking to initiate conference calls does so at his or her endpoint by selecting conference call identifiers, where the identifiers identify conference calls to be created. The initiating participant then selects the participants to be associated with the particular calls and confirms the selection. Upon confirmation of the selection, the conference calls among the selected participants are established.

Claims

1. A method for providing simultaneous management of multiple conference calls, comprising the steps of:

selecting a conference call identifier on a user interface located at an endpoint of a system;

selecting on the user interface participants to be associated with the selected conference call;

confirming on the user interface the selection of each participant to be associated with the selected conference calls; and

establishing the conference calls among the confirmed participants.

2. The method of claim 1, said establishing step comprising:

waiting for receipt of requests to initiate conference calls during an idle state;

establishing a set of conference hosts upon receipt of a request to initiate the conference calls;

checking to determine whether host requests are sent to all conference hosts;

waiting for responses from a conference host if host requests are sent to all the conference hosts;

checking to determine whether all conference hosts have responded to the host requests;

establishing a set of all conference call participants;

checking to determine whether all participants in the set of conference call participants have been notified about a new topology;

continuing to await additional receipt of the requests to initiate conference calls.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein requests are received at a distribution module of a controller module from a view module during the idle state.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein host responses are received at the distribution module via a transport service module or locally.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising returning to said step of waiting for responses from the conference hosts if all the responses were not received.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising returning to said waiting for receipt of requests if all participants within the set of all conference call participants have been notified about the new topology.

7. The method of claim 2, further comprising the steps of:

selecting a next conference host from the set of conference hosts if the host requests were not sent to all of the conference hosts; and

sending the host request to the next conference host via a transport service module or locally.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising the steps of:

receiving and processing the host request sent to the next conference host during the idle state of the controller module;

checking to determine which participant to drop from the conference call;

checking to determine which participant to add to the conference call;

updating the conference call via a conference services module;

sending a host response to the distributor module of the controller module via the transport service module or locally; and

returning to the idle state.

9. The method of claim 2, further comprising the steps of:

selecting a next participant from the set of conference call participants if all participants within the set of conference call participants have not been notified about the new topology; and

forwarding a notification of the next participant from the distribution module of the controller module for use in updating remote user interfaces of the conference call participants.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising the steps of:

receiving the notification from the transport service module during the idle state or locally;

updating a display shown to a conference call participant on the user device via the view module; and

returning to the idle state.

11. A system for providing simultaneous management of multiple conference calls over a network, comprising:

a conference call application, comprising;

a first module;

a second module which encapsulates or provides a summary of a current state or configuration of the conference call topology; and

a third module which renders and provides display on the user interface;

a platform module operatively coupled to the multi-conference application; and

a user interface operatively coupled to the platform.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the first module comprises a Controller module, the second module comprises a Model module and the third module comprises a View module.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the Model module notifies the M-Conf View module of changes that occur in the state of the topology.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the View module provides the display on the user interface located at an endpoint and provides user inputs or gesture notifications to the Controller module.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the platform module comprises a user interface service module, a conference service module and a transport service module.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the platform module is a desk set environment.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the desk set environment is a Sip-based or Skype-based environment, which is implemented in a peer-to-peer environment to provide interactive communication with the user device located at the endpoint of the system.

18. The system of claim 12, wherein the Controller module uses the transport service module to communicate with at least one remote endpoint via the network.

19. The system of claim 12, wherein the Controller module comprises a distribution module and a conference host module.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the distribution module at least one of processes changes to a viewed display provided on the user device located at the endpoint of the system, delegates changes to a single conference to the host of the conference, accumulates all change results from all conference hosts and updates topologies of all local and remote conference participants.

21. The system of claim 19, wherein the conference host module updates the conference resources and utilizes a conference services module pursuant to communicating with the user device at the endpoint.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the conference resources comprise at least start conference, add participants, drop participants and change participant parameters.