Method of and System for Presence Management in Telecommunications

• US 20060288099A1
• Filed: 05/08/2006
• Published: 12/21/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/06/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Iotum Corporation
• Original Assignee: Iotum Corporation
• Inventors: Tomczak, Noam David, Jefferson, Todd, Saunders, Alec, Thaw, Howard H., Dufresne, Yanick, Hackston, Andrew
• Application Number:
  US11/382,130
• Publication Number:
  US 20060288099A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1108 Web based protocols, e.g. webRTC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/401 wherein the services involve a main real-time session and one or more additional parallel real-time or time sensitive sessions, e.g. white board sharing or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/2066 Call type detection of indication, e.g. voice or fax, mobile of fixed, PSTN or IP
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/2072 Schedules, e.g. personal calendars
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4211 where the identifier is used to access a profile
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/436 Arrangements for screening incoming calls , i.e. evaluating the characteristics of a call before deciding whether to answer it based on the calling party profile H04M3/42059; based on location H04M3/42348; based on presence H04M3/42365; diversion H04M3/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13034 A/D conversion, code compression/expansion
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13389 LAN, internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/66 Traffic distributors

Abstract

The present invention relates to telecommunication systems and more specifically, to a method of and system for responding to inquiries regarding user presence with respect to various communication systems. The invention provides a method of responding to a presence inquiry for a given user which includes the steps of establishing context parameters for the user, establishing rules to govern responses to presence inquiries, the rules relying on values/states of the context parameters, and determining values/states of context parameters at the time of the presence inquiry, including identifying the party making said inquiry. A presence response is then established with respect to the established rules and the values/states of the context parameters at time of the presence inquiry This presence response is then reported to the inquiring party.

Claims

1. A method of responding to a presence inquiry for a given user comprising the steps of:

establishing context parameters for said user;

establishing rules to govern responses to presence inquiries, said rules relying on values/states of said context parameters;

determining values/states of context parameters at time of said presence inquiry, including identifying the party making said inquiry;

establishing a presence response with respect to said established rules and said values/states of context parameters at time of said presence inquiry; and

reporting said presence response to said inquiring party.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said step of establishing rules comprises the steps of:

launching a rules wizard to present exemplary scenarios and options to said user; and

storing rules values identified by said user.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of:

storing said presence response sent to said inquiry party, indexing said stored presence response with respect to an identifier for said inquiring party.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising the steps of:

in response to a request to change said established rules, being received from said user;

launching said rules wizard, populating fields in said rules wizard with said stored rules values;

storing new rules values identified by said user; and

re-calculating the values of stored presence responses

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising the steps of:

in response to a change in the context of said user, re-calculating the values of stored presence responses.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said user'"'"'s available communications devices includes at least one selected from the group consisting of:

Cellular telephone;

Personal digital assistant;

Personal computer;

Internet-ready telephone;

Voice over IP telephone;

Television set-top box.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein said contextual criteria includes at least one criterion selected from the group consisting of:

Day and Time,

On/Off hook of communication devices,

Relationship to watcher,

Current activity,

Who is the watcher,

PC activity,

Communication history with watcher,

Velocity of user (driving, running etc.),

Mood of user,

Ambient noise and environment, and

Location of user.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of integrating said presence response data into the functionality of an existing business application.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of generating a unique presentity identification based on the user and Watcher identification.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of executing an advanced heuristics algorithm to detect communication patterns, and using this pattern detection to modify the user'"'"'s rules.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of examining the communication history between the user and the watcher by executing a Heuristics/Artifical Intelligence algorithm, enabling more intelligent presence publishing decisions.

12. A telecommunications system comprising:

a telecommunications network;

a plurality of User interface devices;

means for enabling said End User to set up rules for governing presence publishing;

means for establishing contextual parameters for said End User; and

means for coordinating communications between said telecommunications network and said plurality of User interface devices, with consideration for the contextual state of an End User.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein said means for coordinating communications comprises a desktop PC application which:

allows the user to specify rules for given contexts;

interfaces desktop context information to a communications server; and

performs call control between the End User and a third party phone device or software.

14. The system of claim 12, comprising a hierarchy concept of rules and policies that allow for global and individual rules processing.

15. The system of claim 12, comprising a context plug-in architecture that facilitates the introduction of new sources of context within the system.