PERSONALIZED CONFERENCE BRIDGE

• US 20120189113A1
• Filed: 04/05/2012
• Published: 07/26/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Clearinghouse LLC (RPX Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Rockstar Bidco LP (Rockstar Consortium Inc.)
• Inventors: Sylvain, Dany
• Granted Patent: US 8,995,636 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/202.01
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/5054 Meet-me conference, i.e. participants dial-in
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42017 Customized ring-back tones
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42059 Making use of the calling party identifier
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42153 by subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4872 Non-interactive information services
• 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 3/567 Multimedia conference systems

Abstract

The present invention allows a user to customize her personal conference bridge such that conference participants who connect to the bridge are provided conference information selected by the user. In particular, after each conference participant gains access to the personal conference bridge, the conference information is delivered to a terminal of the conference participant. Although the user associated with the personal conference bridge may be a conference participant, delivery of conference information to the user is optional. The conference information may be any type of media content, or information identifying the location of media content to present to the conference participants.

Claims

1. A method of customizing a conference bridge associated with a user, the method comprising:

receiving a request for access to the conference bridge from at least one conference participant;

accessing a user profile associated with the conference bridge; and

sending conference information to the at least one conference participant, the conference information being determined based on the user profile.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the request for access to the conference bridge is received from at least one communication terminal associated with the at least one conference participant; and

the conference information is sent to the at least one communication terminal associated with the at least one conference participant.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the conference information sent to the at least one communication terminal associated with the at least one conference participant is dependent on capabilities of the at least one communication terminal.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein:

multiple participants access the conference bridge using at least one of respective multiple communication terminals; and

the conference information sent to each of the respective communication terminals is dependent on capabilities of the multiple communication terminals.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein accessing the user profile comprises accessing a selected user profile from among multiple user profiles associated with the conference bridge based on at least one criterion.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the at least one criterion is at least one of:

date, time of day, conference identity, and conference participants.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein accessing the user profile comprises accessing a user profile stored on a data server.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the sending of the conference information to the at least one conference participant, the conference information being determined based on the user profile, comprises:

receiving conference information from the data server, the conference information received from the data server being determined based on the user profile; and

forwarding at least some of the conference information received from the data server to the at least one conference participant.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the conference information comprises a pre-recorded greeting specified by the user profile.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the conference information comprises a URL specified by the user profile.

11. The method of claim 2, wherein the conference information comprises media content to be presented to the at least one conference participant by the at least one communication terminal.

12. The method of claim 2, wherein the conference information comprises access information for media content to be presented to the at least one conference participant by the at least one communication terminal, such that the at least one communication terminal accesses the media content using the access information.

13. The method of claim 2, wherein the conference information comprises first media content to be presented to the at least one conference participant by the at least one communication terminal, and access information for second media content to be presented to the at least one conference participant by the at least one communication terminal, such that the at least one communication terminal accesses the second media content using the access information.

14. The method of claim 2, wherein the conference information comprises at least one of a group consisting of first media content to be presented to the at least one conference participant by the at least one communication terminal and access information for second media content to be presented to the at least one conference participant by the at least one communication terminal, such that the at least one communication terminal accesses the second media content using the access information, the first or the second media content comprising at least one of a group consisting of text, graphics, image, voice, audio, or video content.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the conference information is accessed from a server apart from the conference bridge.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the conference information is accessed from a communication terminal associated with a user associated with the user profile.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing access to the conference bridge for the user; and

effecting a media conference between the at least one conference participant and a user associated with the user profile.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein providing access to the conference bridge for the user is initiated by sending a message to join the conference bridge to a communication terminal associated with the user.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the media conference is an audio conference allowing the at least one conference participant and the user to communicate with each other via voice communications.

20. The method of claim 2, further comprising, upon providing access to the conference bridge for the at least one conference participant, placing the conference participant on hold prior to effecting a conference between conference participants and wherein at least a portion of the conference information is delivered to the at least one communication terminal associated with the at least one conference participant while the at least one conference participant is on hold.

21. The method of claim 2, wherein the conference information is streamed from a remote node through the conference bridge to the at least one conference participant.

22. The method claim 1, wherein different conference information is provided to at least two different conference participants.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the conference information provided to each conference participant is based on the at least one conference participant, such that different conference participants may receive different conference information.