Systems and methods to provide telephonic connections via concurrent calls

• US 9,300,703 B2
• Filed: 08/21/2013
• Issued: 03/29/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thryv, Inc. (Mudrick Capital Management LP)
• Original Assignee: YellowPages.com LLC (Mudrick Capital Management LP)
• Inventors: Altberg, Ebbe, Ciesla, Judith Lynn, Faber, Scott, Hirson, Ron, Van Der Linden, Sean
• Primary Examiner(s): Beyen, Zewdu A
• Application Number:
  US13/972,626
• Publication Number:
  US 20130336172A1
• Time in Patent Office: 951 Days
• Field of Search: 370/260, 370/261, 370/263, 370265-270
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42 Systems providing special services or facilities to subscribers specially adapted for wireless communication networks H04W4/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/003 Click to dial services

Abstract

Methods and apparatuses to present communication references to connect people for real time communications via concurrent calls. One embodiment includes: responsive to a search request, identifying information of an entity according to the search request; associating a telephonic reference with the information of the entity; providing the telephonic reference for presentation with the information of the entity to a user; and responsive to a request made via the telephonic reference for a telephonic connection between the user and the entity, initiating a plurality of concurrent calls to a plurality of telephonic references of the entity or a plurality of concurrent calls to a plurality of telephonic references of the user.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

generating, by a server system, a content object for a callee, wherein the content object comprises information of a callee and the content object is associated with a telephonic reference and the information of the callee comprises a first version of a plurality of different telephonic references of the callee;

transmitting, by the server system, the content object, over a network, for presentation of content to a user;

processing a transmission received by the server system, via the telephonic reference, the transmission corresponding to a request from the user for a telephonic connection to the callee;

initiating, by the server system, a first plurality of concurrent calls using a second version of the plurality of different telephonic references of the callee where each call of the first plurality of concurrent calls is to a respective telephonic reference of the plurality of different telephonic references, wherein each telephonic reference of the plurality of different telephonic references is called for a predetermined period of time; and

in response to the first plurality of concurrent calls being answered within the predetermined period of time, joining using the server system the first plurality of concurrent calls into a conference.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the request made via the telephonic reference is received in a call to a connection server at the telephonic reference associated with the information;

and the method further comprises;

identifying the plurality of different telephonic references of the callee based on the telephonic reference associated with the information in response to the received call.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the telephonic reference associated with the information of the callee comprises one of:

a telephone number of the connection server without an extension, a telephone number of the connection server with an extension, a session initiation protocol uniform resource identifier, a user identifier of an instant messaging network, or a voice over Internet protocol user identifier.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

responsive to a call among the first plurality of the concurrent calls being answered at a first one of the plurality of different telephonic references of the callee, connecting the call received at the connection server and the call answered at the first one of the plurality of different telephonic references of the callee.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

responsive to a request from the callee, initiating at least one concurrent call to a subset of the plurality of different telephonic references of the callee, the subset not including the first one of the plurality of different telephonic references; and

responsive to a call among the at least one concurrent call to the subset being answered at a second one of the plurality of different telephonic references of the callee, joining the call received at the connection server, the call answered at the first one of the plurality of different telephonic references of the callee, and the call answered at the second one of the plurality of different telephonic references of the callee into a conference.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the request from the callee comprises a dual-tone multi frequency signal received from the callee in the call answered at the first one of the plurality of different telephonic references of the callee.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the request from the callee is received in one or more of:

a web message, an instant message, a hypertext transfer protocol request, an email message, a short message service message, and/or a multimedia messaging service message.

8. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

responsive to a request from the callee, initiating a call to a telephonic reference specified in the request from the callee; and

joining the call received at the connection server, the call answered at the first one of the plurality of different telephonic references of the callee, and the call to the different telephonic references specified in the request from the callee.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the request made via the telephonic reference associated with the information is received in a message requesting a callback to the user;

and the message includes the telephonic reference associated with the information.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein a second plurality of concurrent calls to a plurality of telephonic references of the user are initiated within a time window specified by the user in the request.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein a second plurality of concurrent calls to a plurality of telephonic references of the user are initiated responsive to the callee answering one of the first plurality of concurrent calls to the plurality of different telephonic references of the callee.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

assigning a reference to represent the plurality of telephonic references of the user; and

sending to the callee a message including the reference assigned to represent the plurality of telephonic references of the user;

wherein the second plurality of concurrent calls to the plurality of telephonic references of the user are initiated in response to a request including the reference assigned to represent the plurality of telephonic references of the user.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein one of the first plurality of concurrent calls to the plurality of different telephonic references of the callee is a call for a peer to peer connection between a device of the callee and a device of the user.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the first plurality of concurrent calls to the plurality of different telephonic references of the callee are initiated from a device of the user.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the telephonic reference associated with the information of the callee comprises an encrypted version of the plurality of telephonic references of the callee.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of different telephonic references is associated with a different respective device of the callee.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein information of the callee is dynamically associated with the telephonic reference when the information of the callee is presented to the user.

18. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

charging a user a fee on behalf of the callee for a transaction carried out over a telephonic connection between the callee and the user established via the telephonic reference associated with the information of the callee.

19. A non-transitory machine readable media storing instructions, which instructions, when executed by a server system, cause the configured to instruct a server system to at least:

generate a content object for a callee, wherein the content object comprises information of a callee and that the content object is associated with a telephonic reference and the information of the callee comprises a first version of a plurality of different telephonic references of the callee;

transmit the content object, over a network, for presentation of content to a user;

process a transmission received by the server system, via the telephonic reference, the transmission corresponding to a request from the user for a telephonic connection to the callee;

initiate a first plurality of concurrent calls using a second version of the plurality of different telephonic references of the callee where each call of the first plurality of concurrent calls is to a respective telephonic reference of the plurality of different telephonic references, wherein each telephonic reference of the plurality of different telephonic references is called for a predetermined period of time; and

in response to the first plurality of concurrent calls being answered within the predetermined period of time, join using the server system the first plurality of concurrent calls into a conference.

20. A server system, comprising:

one or more servers comprising at least one processor, and a memory coupled to the at least one processor and storing instructions configured to cause the server system to at least;

generate a content object for a callee so that the content object comprises information of a callee, wherein the content object is associated with a telephonic reference and the information of the callee comprises a first version of a plurality of different telephonic references of the callee;

transmit the content object, over a network, for presentation of content to a user;

processing a transmission received by the server system, via the telephonic reference, the transmission corresponding to a request from the user for a telephonic connection to the callee;

initiate a first plurality of concurrent calls using a second version of the plurality of different telephonic references of the callee where each call of the first plurality of concurrent calls is to a respective telephonic reference of the plurality of different telephonic references wherein each telephonic reference of the plurality of different telephonic references is called for a predetermined period of time; and

in response to the first plurality of concurrent calls being answered within the predetermined period of time, join the first plurality of concurrent calls into a conference.