Providing Notifications of Call-Related Services

• US 20130136089A1
• Filed: 01/28/2013
• Published: 05/30/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gillett, Mark Alastair, Brenes, Manrique, Short, Theo
• Granted Patent: US 9,717,090 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/329
• 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: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/222 using geographical location information, e.g. messages transmitted or received in proximity of a certain spot or area
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1093 by adding participants; by removing participants
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1094 Inter-user-equipment sessions transfer or sharing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/51 based on terminal or device properties

Abstract

A first near-end terminal is able to conduct voice or video calls with at least one far-end terminal via a packet-based communication system, the first near-end terminal being a mobile user terminal of a near-end user. The first near-end terminal is enabled to discover proximity of at least one second near-end terminal available to provide a resource for use by the near-end user in conjunction with the first near-end terminal when conducting one of said calls, the resource being for use in conducting at least part of the call or in conjunction with the call. The first near-end terminal is also arranged, based on discovering said proximity, to present the near-end user with a message indicating the availability of the second near-end terminal to provide the resource when conducting the call.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

providing a packet-based communication system for conducting voice or video calls over a network; and

providing an instance of a client application enabling a first near-end device to conduct voice or video calls with at least one far-end device via the packet-based communication system, the first near-end device being a mobile user terminal of a near-end user;

wherein the client application is configured to discover proximity, to the first near-end device, of at least one second near-end device available to provide a resource for use by the near-end user in conjunction with the first near-end device when conducting one of said calls, the resource being for use in conducting at least part of the call or in conjunction with the call; and

the client application is further configured, based on discovering said proximity, to present the near-end user with a message indicating the availability of the second near-end device to provide said resource when conducting said call.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the client application is configured to detect said proximity based on the first near-end device and the second near-end device being connected to a same local network.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the client application is configured to detect said proximity based on one or more of:

the first and second near-end devices sharing an address space being a subset of addresses of a packet-based network,

the first and second near-end devices both connecting to a same network interface address of an intermediate network equipment,

the first and second near-end devices being separated by no more than a threshold number of network hops,

a transmission time of a packet travelling between the first and second near-end devices,

a type of access technology currently available for communicating between the first and second near-end devices,

using a geographic localization technology to detect that a geographic location of the first near-end device is within a proximity of a geographic location of the second near-end device, and/or

detection of a sound in an environment common to an the first and second devices.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein second near-end device is a user terminal having at least one audio and/or video transducer, and the provision of the resource comprises enabling the voice or video call to be conducted using the second near-end device to consume or generate at least one audio or video stream of the call, whilst the first near-end device concurrently generates or consumes at least another audio or video stream of the call and/or controls the call.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the client application is configured to present the near end-user with said message at the time when the proximity is discovered, in response to the discovery.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the client application is configured to present the near-end user with said message when the near-end user initiates a call from the first near-end device or receives or accepts and an incoming call, the message being presented in response to the initiation, receipt or acceptance of the call.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the client application is configured to discover said proximity using a server assisted discovery process.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the message prompts the near-end user with an option to select whether to use said resource when conducting the call.

9. Equipment for use in a first near-end device being a mobile user terminal of a near-end user, the equipment comprising:

a transceiver operable to conduct voice or video calls with at least one far-end device via a network; and

a notification module configured to discover proximity of at least one second near-end device available to provide a call-related service in relation to one of said voice or video calls, and, based on discovering said proximity, to output a notification notifying the near-end user of said call-related service.

10. The equipment of claim 9, wherein the notification module is configured to detect said proximity based on the first near-end device and the second near-end device being connected to a same local network.

11. The equipment of claim 9, wherein the notification module is configured to detect said proximity based on one or more of:

the first and second near-end devices sharing an address space being a subset of addresses of a packet-based network,

the first and second near-end devices both connecting to a same network interface address of an intermediate network equipment,

the first and second near-end devices being separated by no more than a threshold number of network hops,

a transmission time of a packet travelling between the first and second near-end devices,

a type of access technology currently available for communicating between the first and second near-end devices,

using a geographic localization technology to detect that a geographic location of the first near-end devices is within a proximity of a geographic location of the second near-end device, and/or

detection of a sound in an environment common to an the first and second near-end devices.

12. The equipment of claim 9, wherein second near-end devices is a user terminal having at least one audio and/or video transducer, and the call-related service comprises enabling the voice or video call to be conducted using the second near-end device to consume or generate at least one audio or video stream of the call, whilst the first near-end device concurrently generates or consumes at least another audio or video stream of the call and/or controls the call.

13. The equipment of claim 10, wherein the notification module is configured to output said notification at the time when the proximity is discovered, in response to the discovery.

14. The equipment of claim 13, wherein the notification comprises a graphical icon displayed on a screen of the first near-end device.

15. The equipment of claim 14, wherein the notification enables the user to use of the call related-service with a single click on the icon.

16. The equipment of claim 9, wherein the notification module is configured to present the near-end user with said message when the near-end user initiates a call from the first near-end device or receives or accepts and an incoming call, the notification being output in response to the initiation, receipt or acceptance of the call.

17. The equipment of claim 9, wherein the notification module is configured to discover said proximity using a server assisted discovery process.

18. The equipment of claim 9, wherein the notification prompts the near-end user with an option to select whether to use said call-related service when conducting the call.

19. The method of claim 9, wherein the message comprises a user defined message.

20. A computer program product for execution on a first user near-end terminal, the first near-end terminal being a mobile terminal operable to establish packet-based voice or video calls with at least one far-end user terminal over a network, and the computer program product being embodied on a computer readable storage medium and comprising code configured so as when executed on the first-near-end terminal to perform operations comprising:

discovering when the first near-end terminal is within a relative proximity of a second near-end terminal available to act as an audio and/or video end-point for one of said voice or video calls;

when the first and second near-end terminals are detected to be within said proximity, automatically outputting a notification to a user of the first near-end terminal, the notification notifying the user of the availability of the second near-end user terminal to act as an audio and/or video endpoint for one or more of the calls, and prompting the user for a user selection as to whether to accept the second near-end terminal for use as said audio and/or video end-point; and

when the user makes one of said calls, using the second near-end user terminal to play out or generate at least one voice or video stream of the call while the first near-end user terminal controls the call and/or plays out or generates at least one other voice or video stream of the call.