METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ESTABLISHING A DATA LINK BASED ON A POTS CONNECTION
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A computer implemented method to establish a data link between parties, each party having a computer and a dial up telephone, the method comprising operations of:
- using the telephones, the parties establishing a dial up telephone connection over a public telephone network either directly or via conference calling bridge;
the computers connecting to a prescribed packet data network and acquiring addresses on said network;
any of the computers, the telephones, or the conference calling bridge identifying the parties to any of the computers or a rendezvous server, the identifying operation carried out by any of generating and communicating machine-readable acoustical signals over the telephone connection, by employing machine-readable features of the telephone connection, or by employing computational analysis of acoustical content of the telephone connection;
any of the computers or the rendezvous server using said identification of the parties to establish a data link between the computers via the network and said addresses on the network; and
the computers employing the established data link to exchange multimedia content representing human-readable communications between the parties.
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Accused Products
Abstract
In a communications system, after parties form a dial up voice telephone connection, the parties respective communications devices automatically create or leverage machine readable features or content of the telephone connection to identify the parties to each other or to a rendezvous server, and thereafter the communications devices and/or the rendezvous server automatically establishes a data link between the parties.
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Citations
16 Claims
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1. A computer implemented method to establish a data link between parties, each party having a computer and a dial up telephone, the method comprising operations of:
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using the telephones, the parties establishing a dial up telephone connection over a public telephone network either directly or via conference calling bridge; the computers connecting to a prescribed packet data network and acquiring addresses on said network; any of the computers, the telephones, or the conference calling bridge identifying the parties to any of the computers or a rendezvous server, the identifying operation carried out by any of generating and communicating machine-readable acoustical signals over the telephone connection, by employing machine-readable features of the telephone connection, or by employing computational analysis of acoustical content of the telephone connection; any of the computers or the rendezvous server using said identification of the parties to establish a data link between the computers via the network and said addresses on the network; and the computers employing the established data link to exchange multimedia content representing human-readable communications between the parties. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A computer implemented method to establish a data link between parties, each party having a computer and a dial up telephone, the method comprising the steps of:
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a step for, using the telephones, the parties establishing a dial up telephone connection over a public telephone network either directly or via conference calling bridge; a step for the computers connecting to a prescribed packet data network and acquiring addresses on said network; a step for any of the computers, the telephones, or the conference calling bridge identifying the parties to any of the computers or a rendezvous server, the identifying operation carried out by any of generating and communicating machine-readable acoustical signals over the telephone connection, by employing machine-readable features of the telephone connection, or by employing computational analysis of acoustical content of the telephone connection; a step for any of the computers or the rendezvous server using said identification of the parties to establish a data link between the computers via the network and said addresses on the network; and a step for the computers employing the established data link to exchange multimedia content representing human-readable communications between the parties.
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13. A computer-implemented method of forming a data link between two or more parties each party having a computer and a telephone, where each computer has an address on a prescribed digital data communications network, the method comprising operations of:
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forming a dial up telephone connection between the parties'"'"' telephones either directly or via conference calling bridge; any of the computers and a rendezvous server connected to any of the network or a combination of the computers and the rendezvous server using the telephone connection to identify all parties to the telephone connection and the network addresses of the parties'"'"' computers and form a data link via the network between the computers of the identified parties to the telephone connection; wherein the use of the telephone connection includes any of the following; generating and exchanging machine-readable acoustical data over the telephone connection, sensing caller ID information of one or more parties'"'"' telephones, and analyzing acoustical content of the telephone connection.
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14. A computer-implemented method of forming a data link between two or more parties each party having a computer and a telephone, where each computer has an address on a prescribed digital data communications network, the method comprising steps of:
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a step for forming a dial up telephone connection between the parties'"'"' telephones either directly or via conference calling bridge; a step for any of the computers and a rendezvous server connected to any of the network or a combination of the computers and the rendezvous server using the telephone connection to identify all parties to the telephone connection and the network addresses of the parties'"'"' computers and form a data link via the network between the computers of the identified parties to the telephone connection; wherein the use of the telephone connection includes any of the following; generating and exchanging machine-readable acoustical data over the telephone connection, sensing caller ID information of one or more parties'"'"' telephones, and analyzing acoustical content of the telephone connection.
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15. A communications system used by multiple parties, comprising:
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associated with each party, a computer and a telephone electrically coupled or integrated to the computer; where the foregoing components are programmed as follows; the computers connecting to a prescribed packet data network and acquiring addresses on said network; responsive to the parties using the telephones to establish a dial up telephone connection over a public telephone network either directly or via conference calling bridge, any of the computers, the telephones, and the conference calling bridge identifying the parties to any of the computers or a rendezvous server, the identifying operation carried out by any of generating and communicating machine-readable acoustical signals over the telephone connection, by employing machine-readable features of the telephone connection, and by employing computational analysis of acoustical content of the telephone connection; any of the computers and the rendezvous server using said identification of the parties to establish a data link between the computers via the network and said addresses on the network; and the computers employing the established data link to exchange multimedia content representing human-readable communications between the parties.
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16. A communications system used by multiple parties, comprising:
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associated with each party, a computer and a dial up telephone; a rendezvous server; a conference calling bridge; where the foregoing components are programmed as follows; the computers connecting to a prescribed packet data network and acquiring addresses on said network; responsive to the parties operating their telephones to establish a dial up telephone connection over a public telephone network via the bridge, the bridge using caller-ID codes to identify the parties; the bridge relaying the parties'"'"' caller-ID information to the rendezvous server; each party'"'"'s computer initiating a data link with the rendezvous server and transmitting a request including a telephone number associated with said party; the rendezvous server receiving and comparing the caller-ID information from the bridge and the telephone numbers from the requests; and the rendezvous server selecting computers whose requests match caller-ID information from the bridge, and forming or directing the selected computers to form a data link via the network.
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Specification