Endpoint selection for a call completion response

• US 7,522,608 B2
• Filed: 11/01/2005
• Issued: 04/21/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Narayanan, Sankaran, Bedekar, Sameer D., Samdadiya, Parag
• Primary Examiner(s): Ryman; Daniel J
• Assistant Examiner(s): DECKER, CASSANDRA L
• Application Number:
  US11/264,662
• Publication Number:
  US 20070097994A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,267 Days
• Field of Search: 370/395.21
• US Class Current: 370/395.21
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1094 Inter-user-equipment sessions transfer or sharing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42374 where the information is provided to a monitoring entity such as a potential calling party or a call processing server
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/48 Arrangements for recalling a calling subscriber when the wanted subscriber ceases to be busy
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0075 Details of addressing, directories or routing tables

Abstract

Techniques for selecting a call completion response from a group of call completion responses based on weights associated with the call completion responses, are provided. A server processes a call invitation for a callee by forwarding the call invitation to each of the callee'"'"'s endpoints. Each of the callee'"'"'s endpoints associates a weight to its call completion response it generates to accept or reject the call invitation. The server waits to receive the call completion responses from each of the callee'"'"'s endpoints or for a predetermined period of time (i.e., a timeout), and uses the weights associated with the received call completion responses to decide which of the received call completion responses to use to complete the call invitation.

Claims

1. A method in a computer system for selecting a call completion response, the method comprising:

at a server,

receiving a call invitation for a callee;

forwarding the call invitation to each of the callee'"'"'s endpoints; and

after the call invitation is forwarded to each of the callee'"'"'s endpoints;

receiving from at least some of the callee'"'"'s endpoints call completion responses, each received call completion response specifying a weight and whether to accept or reject the call invitation;

upon completion of a timeout starting based on the forwarding of the call invitation or upon receiving a received call completion response from each of the callee'"'"'s endpoints, selecting an appropriate received call completion response using the weight specified by each received call completion response to decide which received call completion response to select such that a received call completion response that specifies to reject the call invitation is selected when its weight indicates that it should be selected over a received call completion response that specifies to accept the call invitation; and

forwarding the selected appropriate received call completion response as a response to the call invitation.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the server and callee'"'"'s endpoints communicate using SIP.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the server is a forking server.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the weight is derived at least in part on the callee'"'"'s presence information.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the weight is derived at least in part on the endpoint'"'"'s functional capabilities.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the weight is derived at least in part on the endpoint'"'"'s usage history.

7. A computing device for responding to a call invitation from a caller directed to a callee with multiple callee endpoints, comprising:

a component that receives from a caller endpoint the call invitation for a callee to join in a call with the caller;

a component that forwards the received call invitation to each of the multiple callee endpoints; and

a component that, after the call invitation is forwarded to each of the multiple callee endpoints,

receives from a first callee endpoint of the multiple callee endpoints a first call completion response, the first call completion response associated with a first weight derived by the first callee endpoint, the first weight indicating whether the first callee endpoint considers the first callee endpoint to be an appropriate callee endpoint to respond to the call invitation;

receives from a second callee endpoint of the multiple callee endpoints a second call completion response, the second call completion response associated with a second weight, different from the first weight, and derived by the second callee endpoint, the second weight indicating whether the second callee endpoint considers the second callee endpoint to be the appropriate callee endpoint to respond to the call invitation;

selects one of the first and second call completion responses based on the associated first weight and second weight such that when the first call completion response specifies to reject the call invitation and the second call completion response indicates to accept the call invitation, the first call completion response is selected over the second call completion response when the first and second weights indicate that the first callee completion response is a more appropriate response; and

forwards the selected call completion response to the caller endpoint as a response to the call invitation.

8. The computing device of claim 7 wherein after a predetermined period of time, the selecting occurs from among the received call completion responses even though a call completion response has not yet been received from all callee endpoints.

9. The computing device of claim 7 wherein a callee endpoint derives a weight based on factors selected from a group consisting of presence of the callee, capabilities of the callee endpoint, and usage history of the callee endpoint.

10. The computing device of claim 7 wherein the call invitation indicates a priority order for call completion responses that the caller endpoint wants to receive.