Emergency Communications Management

• US 20170164176A1
• Filed: 02/17/2017
• Published: 06/08/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/25/2012
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Tim Lieu
• Original Assignee: Tim Lieu
• Inventors: Lieu, Tim
• Application Number:
  US15/436,628
• Publication Number:
  US 20170164176A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/554 involving event detection and direct action
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/005 Alarm destination chosen according to a hierarchy of available destinations, e.g. if hospital does not answer send to police station
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/006 Alarm destination chosen according to type of event, e.g. in case of fire phone the fire service, in case of medical emergency phone the ambulance
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/016 Personal emergency signalling and security systems emergency non-personal manually actuated alarm activators G08B25/12
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/10 using wireless transmission systems G08B25/009 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 3/1008 Personal calling arrangements or devices, i.e. paging systems selective calling systems and call receivers H04W84/00, H04W68/00
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/0272 Voice signal separating
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/08 Annexed information, e.g. attachments
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4594 Address books, i.e. directories containing contact information about correspondents telephone directories in user terminals H04M1/27453
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/04 with alarm systems, e.g. fire, police or burglar alarm systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/069 using certificates or pre-shared keys
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/02 Arrangements for optimising operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/08 User group management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/90 Services for handling of emergency or hazardous situations, e.g. earthquake and tsunami warning systems [ETWS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/50 : for emergency connections

Abstract

Emergency communications systems and methods are provided herein. According to some embodiments, methods for mediating transmission of an emergency communication may include establishing a communications path between an emergency response entity and a communications device of a reporting party in response to an emergency event, and delivering to the emergency response entity an alert communication from the communications device, the alert communication comprising at least a location of the communications device and visual content captured by the communications device.

Claims

1. A method for mediating transmission of an emergency communication, the method comprising:

establishing a first group consisting of communication devices of emergency response entities for a reporting party, including a communication device of the reporting party;

establishing a first communications path between a first person on behalf of an emergency response entity in the group and the communication device of a second person who is the reporting party, in response to an emergency event;

in response to the first communications path between the first person and the second person being prematurely terminated, automatically establishing a second communications path between the first person and the second person to resume communication as originally established by the first communications path;

in the event that the second communications path is not established, establishing a third communications path between the emergency response entity and the second person who is the reporting party; and

in the event the first communications path is terminated voluntarily, both the first person and the second person having an option to establish a fourth communications path between each other to resume communication as originally established by the first communications path.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

establishing a second group consisting of communication devices of emergency contacts for a reporting party, each communication device communicatively coupleable to each other;

automatically sending a notification to the second group about the emergency event, the notification including the ability of the second group to hear and view audio and video and text messages from the reporting party, or to hear and view audio and video and text messages between the reporting party and the emergency response entity;

delivering to the emergency response entity an alert communication from the communication device of the reporting party, the alert communication comprising at least a location of the communication device and visual content captured by the communication device; and

in response to the notification, automatically facilitating an exchange of communication between the communication devices within the second group about the emergency event, the exchange of communication being independent of the emergency response entity and the reporting party.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the alert communication further comprises any of telecommunications data, a voice over Internet protocol data, image data, video data, audio data, multimedia data, a gesture-based input, a motion-based input, a continuous or periodic content feed, a short message service message, a status update, or any combinations thereof.

4. The method according to claim 2, further comprising receiving a list of emergency contacts from the reporting party via the communication device.

5. The method according to claim 4, further comprising transmitting to at least one emergency contact on the list of emergency contacts the alert communication.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the at least one emergency contact is selected based upon a location of a communication device associated with the at least one emergency contact relative to the location of the communication device associated with the reporting party.

7. The method according to claim 2, wherein content captured by the communication device of the reporting party comprises a continuous feed of any of audio, video, multimedia, or combinations thereof.

8. The method according to claim 2, further comprising providing a continuous feed to the emergency response entity via a user interface, the user interface comprising controls that allow the emergency response entity to interact with the continuous feed.

9. The method according to claim 2, further comprising determining a number of communications devices reporting a same emergency event based upon location information associated with each alert communication received.

10. The method according to claim 2, further comprising applying speech recognition to sound input received from the communication device to distinguish speakers in the sound input.

11. The method according to claim 2, further comprising generating a report that comprises alert communications received from communication devices associated with reporting entities.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein the alert communications are grouped into the report based upon location information included in the alert communications.

13. The method according to claim 2, further comprising providing notification to a communication device associated with an emergency contact, the notification requesting confirmation for adding the emergency contact to an emergency contact list.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the notification comprises any of a short message service message, an email message, or combinations thereof, the notification comprising a link for downloading a client application that enables communication between the communication device of the reporting party and at least one communication device associated with the emergency contact.

15. The method according to claim 2, further comprising continuously monitoring the location of any of the communication device associated with the reporting party and a communication device associated with at least one emergency contact;

and providing the location to an authorized party.

16. The method according to claim 2, further comprising providing a directory of emergency response entity records to the communication device of the reporting party, the directory comprising at least a name and phone number for an emergency response entity.

17. The method according to claim 2, further comprising transmitting a forwarding request from at least one emergency contact to at least one other party;

and establishing a communications path that allows the at least one other party to also receive the alert communication.

18. The method according to claim 2, comprising capturing a satellite image that includes the location of the communication device of the reporting party.

19. The method according to claim 2, further comprising activating the communication device of the reporting party by any of:

native voice recognition, a tap, a gesture, motion-based input, or proximity sensed input.

20. The method according to claim 2, further comprising disabling the communication device of the reporting party upon receiving a disabling command.

21. The method according to claim 20, the disabling command further comprising a sound-based input from an authorized party.

22. The method according to claim 20, the disabling command further comprising a command received over a network from an authorized party.

23. The method according to claim 2, further comprising transmitting a silence message to the emergency response entity to inform the emergency response entity that verbal communication is prohibited.

24. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first, second, third or fourth communications path comprises any of a wired or wireless telecommunications path, a TCP/IP path, a VOIP path, a WiFi path, or combinations thereof.

25. The method according to claim 1, wherein establishing the first, second, third or fourth communications path with the emergency response entity further comprises establishing a TCP/IP path between the emergency response entity and the communication device of the reporting party when a wired or wireless telecommunications path cannot be established between the emergency response entity and the communication device of the reporting party.

26. The method according to claim 2, further comprising providing a list of emergency events arranged onto a map, the emergency events having occurred within a given time period and a given location, based upon the location of the communication device of the reporting party or based upon a received location.

27. The method according to claim 2, further comprising playing an audible sound from the communication device upon an occurrence of an emergency event.

28. The method according to claim 2, further comprising allowing one or more of the emergency contacts to receive a telecommunications feed between the reporting party and the emergency response entity.

29. The method according to claim 2, further comprising testing an emergency communication channel by executing a test transmission of an alert communication by transmitting the location of the communication device and visual content captured by the at least one media capturing device of the communication device to an intermediary server that is communicatively coupleable with the emergency response entity, the communication device, or one or more of the emergency contacts, wherein the intermediary server sends a test signal to any of the emergency response entity and the one or more emergency contacts.

30. A method for mediating transmission of an emergency communication, the method comprising:

establishing a first group consisting of communication devices of emergency contacts for a reporting party, each communication device communicatively coupleable to each other;

establishing a second group consisting of communication devices of emergency response entities for a reporting party, including a communication device of the reporting party, each of the communication devices of the emergency response entities and the reporting party not communicatively coupleable to the first group of communication devices;

establishing a first communications path between a first person on behalf of the emergency response entity in the second group and the communication device of a second person who is the reporting party, in response to an emergency event;

in response to the first communications path between the first person and the second person being prematurely terminated, automatically establishing a second communications path between the first person and the second person to resume communication as originally established by the first communications path;

in the event that the second communications path is not established, establishing a third communications path between the emergency response entity and the second person who is the reporting party; and

in the event the first communications path is terminated voluntarily, both the first person and the second person having an option to establish a fourth communications path between each other to resume communication as originally established by the first communications path;

automatically sending a notification to the first group about the emergency event, the notification including the ability of the first group to hear and view audio and video and text messages from the reporting party, or to hear and view audio and video and text messages between the reporting party and the emergency response entity;

delivering to the emergency response entity an alert communication from the communication device of the reporting party, the alert communication comprising at least a location of the communication device and visual content captured by the communication device; and

in response to the notification, automatically facilitating an exchange of communication between the communication devices within the first group about the emergency event, the exchange of communication being independent of the emergency response entity and the reporting party.