Method and apparatus for providing ambient social telephony

• US 9,025,752 B2
• Filed: 11/01/2011
• Issued: 05/05/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Blewett, Charles Douglas, Blewett, Megan, Haarde, Robert, Gibbons, Joseph
• Primary Examiner(s): Elahee, Md S
• Application Number:
  US13/286,329
• Publication Number:
  US 20130108029A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,281 Days
• Field of Search: 379/67.1, 379/93.21, 379/158, 379/202.01, 379/205.01, 370260-262, 370/271, 455/416, 348/14.09, 348/14.08
• US Class Current: 379/202.01
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/20 Movements or behaviour, e.g. gesture recognition recognition of facial expressions G06V40/16
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1093 by adding participants; by removing participants
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/2016 Call initiation by network rather than by subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/2038 Call context notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/5009 Adding a party to an existing conference
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/655 Combination of telephone service and social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42153 by subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42221 Conversation recording systems at the subscriber's set H04M1/656
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42382 Text-based messaging services in telephone networks such as PSTN/ISDN, e.g. User-to-User Signalling or Short Message Service for fixed networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/563 User guidance or feature selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/568 audio processing specific to telephonic conferencing, e.g. spatial distribution, mixing of participants echo suppression in two-way loud-speaking telephone systems H04M9/02; sound field processing per se H04S7/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/15 Conference systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]

Abstract

A method, non-transitory computer readable medium and apparatus for providing a communications service in a communications network are disclosed. For example, the method monitors a conference call, detects a triggering event during the conference call registered for a particular user, wherein the particular user is not a participant in the conference call, and notifies the particular user of the triggering event.

Claims

1. A method for notifying a particular user, comprising:

monitoring, by a processor, a conference call;

detecting, by the processor, a triggering event during the conference call registered for the particular user, wherein the particular user is not a participant in the conference call, wherein the conference call is not scheduled for the particular user, wherein the triggering event comprises a key word of interest to the particular user that is pre-registered by the particular user and detected during the conference call between other users on the conference call; and

notifying, by the processor, the particular user of the triggering event, wherein the notifying includes an option to receive a predefined duration of a recorded portion of the conference call containing the triggering event before connecting the particular user to the conference call.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending the particular user an option to join the conference call; and

connecting the particular user to the conference call upon receiving a confirmation that the particular user wants to join the conference call.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a registration of the triggering event of interest from the particular user before monitoring the conference call.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the detecting is performed via an automated voice recognition module.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the detecting is performed via a gesture detection module.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the notifying comprises sending a short message service message to the particular user.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the conference call comprises a video conference call.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the triggering event further comprises a key gesture.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the triggering event further comprises a key data.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the triggering event further comprises key data that matches data that is received from an endpoint of the particular user.

11. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a plurality of instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations for notifying a particular user, the operations comprising:

monitoring a conference call;

detecting a triggering event during the conference call registered for the particular user, wherein the particular user is not a participant in the conference call, wherein the conference call is not scheduled for the particular user, wherein the triggering event comprises a key word of interest to the particular user that is pre-registered by the particular user and detected during the conference call between other users on the conference call; and

notifying the particular user of the triggering event, wherein the notifying includes an option to receive a predefined duration of a recorded portion of the conference call containing the triggering event before connecting the particular user to the conference call.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, further comprising:

sending the particular user an option to join the conference call; and

connecting the particular user to the conference call upon receiving a confirmation that the particular user wants to join the conference call.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving a registration of the triggering event of interest from the particular user before monitoring the conference call.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the notifying comprises sending a short message service message to the particular user.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the conference call comprises a video conference call.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the triggering event further comprises key data that matches data that is received from an endpoint of the particular user.

17. An apparatus for notifying a particular user, comprising:

a processor;

a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a plurality of instructions, which when executed by the processor perform operations, the operations comprising;

monitoring a conference call;

detecting a triggering event during the conference call registered for the particular user, wherein the particular user is not a participant in the conference call, wherein the conference call is not scheduled for the particular user, wherein the triggering event comprises a key word of interest to the particular user that is pre-registered by the particular user and detected during the conference call between other users on the conference call; and

notifying the particular user of the triggering event, wherein the notifying includes an option to receive a predefined duration of a recorded portion of the conference call containing the triggering event before connecting the particular user to the conference call.