Multimedia interactive telephony services

• US 20090147774A1
• Filed: 10/30/2008
• Published: 06/11/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bridgeport Networks, Inc. (Alianza, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: CounterPath Corporation (Alianza, Inc.)
• Inventors: Caughey, David A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,542,673 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways

Abstract

In a multimedia interactive telephony system, a voice service server generates dynamic content intended for consumption by a communication device. The dynamic content is sent to a gateway where it is transformed from to an intermediate content format appropriate for rendering at the communication device. The user may interact with the transformed dynamic content rendered on the communication device, causing the arguments to be sent to the voice server, thus allowing user interactivity with the voice service. The voice services server may also generate dynamic content for simultaneous consumption by multiple communication devices, each of which may independently render an intermediate content format appropriate to it. The voice services server may also generate the dynamic content for the communication device while the communication device is not currently engaged in an active call.

Claims

1. A multimedia interactive telephony system comprising:

a voice service server;

an access aggregation network connected to the voice service server;

a communication device connected to the access aggregation network;

wherein the voice service server communicates with the access aggregation network using a first protocol;

wherein the communication device communicates with the access aggregation network using a second protocol;

wherein the access aggregation network comprises a gateway to transform dynamic content from the first protocol understood by the voice service server to and from a second protocol understood by the communication device;

wherein the second protocol used by the communication device comprises an intermediate content format appropriate for rendering by the communication device;

wherein the communication device renders the transformed dynamic content for display to a user.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the second protocol used by the communication device comprises a protocol selected from the group consisting of TDM telephony, text messaging, SIP, Skype, XMPP/Jingle, Mitel MiNet, SIP/SIMPLE, MSNP, YMSG, HTTP, and SOAP.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the voice services server generates dynamic content for consumption by the communication device.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the dynamic content comprises arguments that uniquely identifying an action, wherein user interaction with the transformed dynamic content rendered on the communication device causes the arguments to be sent to the voice server.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the voice services server generates dynamic content for simultaneous consumption by multiple communication devices, wherein each of the multiple communication devices independently renders an intermediate content format.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the dynamic content comprises an invitation to join a conference bridge previously established with the voice service server.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the voice services server generates the dynamic content for the communication device while the communication device is not currently engaged in an active call.

8. A method for multimedia interactive telephony comprising:

communicating dynamic content from a voice service server to a gateway server using a first protocol;

transforming at the gateway the dynamic content from the first protocol to a second protocol;

communicating the transformed dynamic content to a communication device using an intermediate content format appropriate for rendering by the communication device; and

rendering at the communication device the transformed dynamic content for display to a user.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the rendered dynamic content comprises interactive graphical user interface elements, wherein user interaction with the interactive graphical user interface elements rendered on the communication device causes the communication device to send a signal to the voice server.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein the dynamic content comprises a text element with a language localization tag, and wherein the rendered dynamic content is presented in a language dependent upon user preferences of the communication device.