Arrangement for facilitating plug-and-play call features
First Claim
1. A call-control apparatus wherein each call feature is implemented as a server program and a cooperating client program, comprising:
- means for executing the client and the server programs;
means for registering for a user an instance of a server program that implements any call feature, in a same manner as any other instances of any server programs that implement any call features, substantially at any time during operation of the call-control apparatus to provide the call feature for the user;
an administration interface for communicating information, between the server program and a cooperating said client program used by the user, in a same manner as between any other client programs and any server programs that implement any call features, to customize the instance of the server program for the user; and
means for involving the instance of the server program in a call to which the user is a party, in a same manner as any other instance of any server programs that implement any call features, to provide the feature to the call.
13 Assignments
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Accused Products
Abstract
A telecommunications system infrastructure that facilitates easy insertion of feature software into existing such telecommunications systems and easy integration of the new calling features and their implementing software with existing features and their software. The infrastructure comprises the Lucent Technologies MMCX multimedia communications server (100) and middleware-compliant communications endpoints (101-102) executing the Lucent Technologies MMCX communications middleware (111-112). Feature-implementing software has a modular client/server construction, with feature managers (server modules, 300,350) executing on the MMCX server and feature administration agents (client modules, 303-353, 304-354) executing on the endpoints. The infrastructure provides a context service (120) and a context API (121) for registering an instance of a feature manager (a user policy, 301-302, 351-352) for each user upon that user becoming entitled to the feature, an administration API (360) for communications between feature managers and feature administration agents on the user'"'"'s endpoint to customize the user'"'"'s user policies for the user, and a context (a cyberspace meeting room, 200) and the context API for involving the user policies of users who are parties to a call in the call and for communicating call-related events to feature servers and other service-implementing software. Call-related events are passed to user policies involved in the call, and they are given a chance to react to the events by allowing or rejecting the events. Interactions between features are managed by having feature managers register at different priorities with the context service; higher-priority modules are serially given an opportunity to allow or reject events before lower-priority modules.
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Citations
10 Claims
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1. A call-control apparatus wherein each call feature is implemented as a server program and a cooperating client program, comprising:
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means for executing the client and the server programs; means for registering for a user an instance of a server program that implements any call feature, in a same manner as any other instances of any server programs that implement any call features, substantially at any time during operation of the call-control apparatus to provide the call feature for the user; an administration interface for communicating information, between the server program and a cooperating said client program used by the user, in a same manner as between any other client programs and any server programs that implement any call features, to customize the instance of the server program for the user; and means for involving the instance of the server program in a call to which the user is a party, in a same manner as any other instance of any server programs that implement any call features, to provide the feature to the call. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method of controlling calls in an apparatus wherein each call feature is implemented as a server program and a cooperating client program and which executes the client and the server programs, comprising the steps of:
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in response to a user becoming entitled to a call feature, registering for the user an instance of the server program that implements the call feature, in a same manner as any other instance of any server programs that implement any call features, substantially at any time during operation of the apparatus, to provide the call feature for the user; in response to the user using the client program, communicating information between the server program and the client program through an administration interface, in a same manner as information is communicated through the administration interface between any other client programs and any server programs that implement any call feature, to customize the instance of the server program for the user; and in response to the user becoming a party to a call, involving the instance of the server program in the call, in a same manner as any other instance of any server programs that implement any call features, to provide the feature to the call. - View Dependent Claims (10)
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Specification