ENABLING EMERGENCY CALL BACK TO A USER DEVICE

• US 20120129482A1
• Filed: 11/23/2010
• Published: 05/24/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/23/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: LI, Mingxing, Evans, Jeffrey R., Wurster, John, Lau, Priscilla
• Granted Patent: US 8,965,325 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/404.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/2005 Temporarily overriding a service configuration
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42195 Arrangements for calling back a calling subscriber when the wanted subscriber ceases to be busy H04M3/48
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5116 for emergency applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/54 Arrangements for diverting calls for one subscriber to another predetermined subscriber based on the calling party profile H04M3/42059; based on location H04M3/42348; based on presence H04M3/42365; to voice mail H04M3/53308
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/006 Networks other than PSTN/ISDN providing telephone service, e.g. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) , including next generation networks with a packet-switched transport layer H04L65/00 takes precedence; aspects not specific to the type of network H04M3/00; special services in those networks H04M3/42

Abstract

Emergency call backs may be placed to a user device in a manner that bypasses certain features (e.g., call forwarding) that may be enabled by the device. A method may include receiving an emergency call from a user device; and creating, in response to the emergency call, an emergency session associated with the user device, where the creating includes forwarding the call to a public safety access point (PSAP) server that handles emergency calls. The method may further include receiving a call, such as an emergency call back call, destined for the user device; determining that the emergency session has not expired when an elapse time associated with the emergency session is less than a threshold; and forwarding, to the user device, the call, as a return call from the PSAP server, based on the determination that the emergency session has not expired.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a server device, an emergency call from a user device, where a user of the user device has enabled a feature that causes one or more calls, destined for the user device, to be forwarded to another user device or not to be forwarded to the user device;

creating, by the server device and in response to the emergency call, an emergency session associated with the user device, where the creating includes forwarding the call to a public safety access point (PSAP) server that handles emergency calls;

receiving, by the server device, a call destined for the user device;

determining, by the server device, that the emergency session has not expired when an elapse time associated with the emergency session is less than a threshold;

processing, by the server device, the call in a manner that does not implement the feature that causes the one or more calls to be forwarded to another user device or not to be forwarded to the user device, based on the determination that the emergency session has not expired; and

forwarding, by the server device and to the user device, the call, as a return call from the PSAP server, based on the disabled feature.

2. The method of claim 1, where the emergency call is an emergency call that is sent using a session initiation protocol (SIP) or is sent as a SIP invite message.

3. The method of claim 1, where receiving the emergency call further includes:

obtaining location information associated with the user device from the emergency call; and

identifying the PSAP server, of a plurality of PSAP servers, to which the emergency call is to be sent based on the location information associated with the user device.

4. The method of claim 1, where creating the emergency session further includes:

identifying the user device based on information associated with the user device obtained from the emergency call; and

forwarding the emergency call to the PSAP server in a manner that includes the information associated with the user device, that enables the PSAP server to place the return call.

5. The method of claim of claim 1, where creating the emergency session further includes:

storing, in a data structure, a time that the emergency call was received and information associated with the user device.

6. The method of claim 5, where determining that the emergency session has not expired further includes:

determining the elapsed time of the emergency session based on a current time and the time that the emergency call was received; and

comparing the elapsed time to the threshold.

7. The method of claim 1, where processing the call in the manner that does not implement the feature further includes:

sending, to another server device that processes calls based on features enabled by user devices, an instruction to process the call in a manner that does not include implementing the feature that causes the one or more calls to be forwarded to the other user device.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving another call destined for the user device;

determining that the emergency session has expired when another elapse time associated with the emergency session is greater than the threshold; and

forwarding the another call to the another user device based on the feature that causes the one or more calls, destined for the user device, to be forwarded to the another user device and the determination that the emergency session has expired.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving another call destined for a further user device;

determining that there is no emergency session associated with the further user device; and

processing the call as a normal call based on the determination that there is no emergency session associated with the further user device.

10. A server device comprising:

a memory to store a data structure that includes a particular time at which an emergency call was received from a user device, where the user device has enabled a feature that causes calls, destined for the user device, to be forwarded to another user device or not to be forwarded to the user device; and

a processor to;

receive a call destined for the user device from a public safety access point (PSAP) server,

determine whether an emergency session, associated with the user device, has expired based an elapsed time and a session threshold, where the elapse time is based on the particular time and a current time,

forward the call, as an emergency return call, to the user device when the elapsed time is less than the session threshold, where forwarding the call, as the emergency return call, includes forwarding the call in a manner that bypasses an application server that implements the feature enabled by the user device, and

forward the call, as a normal call, to the other user device when the elapsed time is greater than the session threshold, where forwarding the call, as the normal call, includes forwarding the call to the application server that implements the feature enabled by the user device.

11. The server device of claim 10, where the processor is further to:

receive, from the user device, the emergency call at the particular time,

start a timer associated with an emergency session with the user device as a result of receiving the emergency call, and

store, in the data structure within the memory, emergency session information associated with the user device, where the emergency session information includes the information associated with the user device and the particular time.

12. The server device of claim 11, where the information associated with the user device includes a device identifier associated with the user device or a network address associated with the user device.

13. The server device of claim 10, where, when forwarding the call, as the normal call, the processor is further to:

forward the call to an application server, where the application server identifies the feature that is enabled by the user device, and

receive the call from the application server, where the call includes information associated with the other user device to which the call is to be transferred.

14. The server device of claim 13, where, when forwarding the call, as the emergency return call, the processor is further to:

bypass the forwarding of the call to the application server.

15. The server device of claim 10, where the feature that is enabled by the user device includes at least one of a do not disturb feature, a call forwarding feature, or a simultaneous ring feature, where:

the do not disturb feature causes the call to be forwarded to a voicemail box associated with the user device,

the call forwarding feature causes the call to be forwarded to the other user device, and the simultaneous ring features causes the call to be forwarded to the user device and another user device.

16. The server device of claim 10, where the processor is further to:

receive another emergency call from another user device, where the other user device is not registered with a network associated with the server device, and

transfer the other emergency call to another server device, where the other server device handles emergency calls from unregistered user devices and forwards the emergency calls to another PSAP server.

17. The server device of claim 10, where the processor is further to:

receive, from the user device, the emergency call at the particular time,

communicate with another server device to identify to which PSAP server, of a plurality of PSAP servers, the emergency call is to be forwarded based on location information associated with the user device obtained from the emergency call, and

forward the emergency call to the PSAP server based the communicating with the other server device.

18. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising:

instructions for receiving an emergency call from a user device, where a user of the user device has activated a feature that redirects calls, destined for the user device, to another user device or that causes calls, destined for the user device, not to be directed to the user device;

instructions to forward the emergency call to a public safety access point (PSAP) server that handles emergency calls;

instructions to receive a call destined for the user device;

instructions to determine that the call is a return call, associated with the emergency call, when a period of time since the emergency call was received is less than a threshold; and

instructions to forward the return call to the user device in a manner that temporarily deactivates the feature that redirects calls to the other user device or that causes calls not to be directed to the user device.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18, where receiving the emergency call from the user device further includes:

starting a timer for an emergency session associated with the user device; and

storing, in a data structure, information associated with the emergency session, where the information associated with the emergency session includes a time that the emergency call was received and information associated with the user device.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, further comprising:

receiving another call destined for another user device;

determining that the other call is not a return call, associated with another emergency call, when information associated with the other emergency session, that corresponds to the other user device, is not stored in the data structure; and

forwarding the other call to a further user device based on a feature, associated with the other user device, that redirects calls to the further user device.

21. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18, where determining that the call is the return call associated with the emergency call further includes:

determining the period of time since the emergency call was received based on a point in time that the emergency call was received and a current time; and

comparing the period of time since the call was received with the threshold.

22. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18, further comprising:

receiving another call destined for the user device;

determining that the call is not a return call, associated with another emergency call, when a period of time since the other emergency call was received is greater than the threshold; and

forwarding the other call to the other user device based on the feature that redirects calls to the other user device.