Call control in video conferencing allowing acceptance and identification of participants in a new incoming call during an active teleconference

• US 5,758,079 A
• Filed: 06/07/1996
• Issued: 05/26/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 10/01/1993
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Pragmatus AV LLC (Pragmatus, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Vicor Corporation
• Inventors: Lantz, Keith A., Lauwers, J. Chris, Burns, Emmett R., Burnett, Gerald J., Ludwig, Lester F.
• Primary Examiner(s): DINH, DUNG C
• Application Number:
  US08/660,805
• Time in Patent Office: 718 Days
• Field of Search: 370/260, 370/261, 370/265, 370/270, 395/327, 395/328, 395/329, 395/330, 395/200.04, 395/200.34, 395/200.35, 395/200.36, 395/200.37, 364/514 A, 345/330, 345/331, 345/332, 379/202, 379/203, 379/204, 379/205, 379/206, 348/14, 348/15
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1813 for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms instant messaging H04L51/04; protocols for multimedia communication H04L65/1101; arrangements for multi-party communication H04L65/403; telephonic conference arrangements H04M3/56; television conference systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1818 Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1827 Network arrangements for conference optimisation or adaptation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1831 Tracking arrangements for later retrieval, e.g. recording contents, participants activities or behavior, network status
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1836 with heterogeneous network architecture
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/185 with management of multicast group membership
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/00 User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/10 Multimedia information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4038 with floor control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/38 Displays
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/5018 Initiating a conference during a two-party conversation, i.e. three-party-service or three-way-call computer conference organisation arrangements H04L12/1818
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/5027 Dropping a party from a conference conducting a computer conference, e.g. admission detection H04L12/1822
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42221 : Conversation recording systems at the subscriber's set H04M1/656
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42323 : PBX's with CTI arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4285 : Notifying, informing or entertaining a held party while on hold, e.g. Music On Hold
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5307 : for recording messages comprising any combination of audio and non-audio components
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/562 : where the conference facilities are distributed
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/563 : User guidance or feature selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/564 : whereby the feature is a sub-conference
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/567 : Multimedia conference systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/006 : Networks other than PSTN/ISDN providing telephone service, e.g. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) , including next generation networks with a packet-switched transport layer H04L65/00 takes precedence; aspects not specific to the type of network H04M3/00; special services in those networks H04M3/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/12 : for working between exchanges having different types of switching equipment, e.g. power-driven and step by step or decimal and non-decimal
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/147 : Communication arrangements, e.g. identifying the communication as a video-communication, intermediate storage of the signals selecting H04Q
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/148 : Interfacing a video terminal to a particular transmission medium, e.g. ISDN
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/15 : Conference systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/152 : Multipoint control units therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/1305 : Software aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13093 : Personal computer, PC
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13175 : Graphical user interface [GUI], WWW interface, visual indication
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/1319 : Amplifier, attenuation circuit, echo suppressor
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/1322 : PBX
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/1324 : Conference call
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/1326 : Consultation call, broker's call, call hold, toggling
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/1332 : Logic circuits
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13337 : Picturephone, videotelephony
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13389 : LAN, internet

Abstract

A multimedia collaboration system that integrates separate real-time and asynchronous networks--the former for real-time audio and video, and the latter for control signals and textual, graphical and other data--in a manner that is interoperable across different computer and network operating system platforms and which closely approximates the experience of face-to-face collaboration, while liberating the participants from the limitations of time and distance. These capabilities are achieved by exploiting a variety of hardware, software and networking technologies in a manner that preserves the quality and integrity of audio/video/data and other multimedia information, even after wide area transmission, and at a significantly reduced networking cost as compared to what would be required by presently known approaches. The system architecture is readily scalable to the largest enterprise network environments. It accommodates differing levels of collaborative capabilities available to individual users and permits high-quality audio and video capabilities to be readily superimposed onto existing personal computers and workstations and their interconnecting LANs and WANs. In a particular preferred embodiment, a plurality of geographically dispersed multimedia LANs are interconnected by a WAN. The demands made on the WAN are significantly reduced by employing multi-hopping techniques, including dynamically avoiding the unnecessary decompression of data at intermediate hops, and exploiting video mosaicing, cut-and-paste and audio mixing technologies so that significantly fewer wide area transmission paths are required while maintaining the high quality of the transmitted audio/video.

Claims

1. A teleconferencing system for conducting a teleconference among a plurality of participants comprising:

(a) a plurality of workstations associated with a corresponding plurality of participants, each workstation including a monitor;

(b) AV capture capabilities at each workstation configured to capture the image and voice of the participants; and

(c) an incoming call acceptance mechanism capable of detecting an incoming teleconference call, from at least one calling participant, at the workstation of a first participant and, if the first participant is engaged in an active teleconference with a second participant, notifying the first participant of the identity of each calling participant forming a part of the incoming teleconference call and providing the first participant with the option of accepting the incoming teleconference call.

2. The teleconferencing system of claim 1, further comprising:

(a) an incoming call mode selector, at the workstation of the first participant and operable by the first participant, that can select a desired incoming call mode from one of an intercom mode and a telephone mode, wherein

(i) if telephone mode is selected or the first participant is engaged in an active teleconference, the first participant is notified of, and provided with the option of, accepting the incoming teleconference call, and

(ii) if intercom mode is selected, the incoming call is accepted automatically.

3. The teleconferencing system of claim 2, wherein the incoming call acceptor can perform any function selected from the set of functions consisting of:

(a) blocking all incoming teleconference calls;

(b) notifying the calling participants that the first participant refuses to accept the call; and

(c) notifying the calling participants that an attempt has been made to establish the call but that the call has not yet been established.

4. The teleconferencing system of claim 1, wherein the call acceptance mechanism includes a priority call announcer capable of informing the first participant that a priority teleconference call is being directed to the workstation of the first participant.

5. The teleconferencing system of claim 1, further comprising:

(a) a teleconference call acceptance detection mechanism capable of detecting whether the first participant accepted the incoming teleconference call ; and

(b) a leave word indicator capable of generating a message that can be visually displayed by the monitor at the workstation of the first participant indicating that the calling participants attempted to call the first participant, if the first participant did not accept the teleconference call.

6. The teleconferencing system of claim 1 wherein, if the second participant selects the incoming teleconference call, the incoming call acceptance mechanism places the active teleconference on hold and accepts the incoming teleconference call.

7. The teleconferencing system of claim 1, further comprising:

(a) a call initiator at the workstations of the calling participants including a call status indicator capable of indicating the status of the call to the calling participants.

8. The teleconference system of claim 7, wherein the incoming call acceptance mechanism can cause the monitor at the workstation of the first participant to display the identification of the calling participants.

9. The teleconferencing system of claim 1, further comprising:

(a) an add participant selection mechanism capable of selecting a new participant from among a plurality of potential participants and adding the new participant to the active teleconference.

10. The teleconferencing system of claim 1, further comprising:

(a) an incoming call detection mechanism capable of detecting, during the active teleconference, an attempt by the calling participants to initiate a second teleconference call with the first participant, and capable of notifying the first participant of the attempt; and

(b) an incoming call acceptance mechanism, operable by the first participant, to add the calling participants to the active teleconference.

11. The teleconferencing system of claim 10, wherein the incoming call detection mechanism can detect, and the incoming call acceptance mechanism can add, a third participant to the teleconference after the calling participants have been added.

12. The teleconferencing system of claim 1, further comprising:

(a) an AV path for carrying AV signals among the workstations, the AV signals representing video images and/or spoken audio of the participants;

(b) an AV conference manager, configured to manage a videoconference during which the video image and spoken audio of at least one of the participants are produced by the monitors at the workstations of the other participants;

wherein the AV conference manager is capable of supporting a maximum number of calls equal to N, where N is any integer, associated with a workstation; and

(c) a call selector that enables a selecting participant operating the workstation, when faced with M possible calls, where M is an integer greater than N, to select N of the M calls.

13. The teleconferencing system of claim 12, further comprising:

(a) means, operable by the selecting participant, for invoking further calls even if the AV conference manager is supporting N active calls and for giving the selecting participant the opportunity to select which calls are to be active.

14. The teleconferencing system of claim 1, further comprising

(a) an incoming call postponing mechanism, operable by the first participant, to notify the calling participants that the first participant, instead of accepting the call, wishes to postpone it.

15. The teleconferencing system of claim 14, wherein the first participant can operate the incoming call postponing mechanism to inform the calling participants of an expected postponement period.

16. The teleconferencing system of claim 15, further comprising:

(a) means for capturing and saving particulars relating to the postponed incoming teleconference call, sufficient for the first participant to later initiate a teleconference call, with the calling participants.

17. The teleconferencing system of claim 1, further comprising:

(a) a teleconference call deferring mechanism, operable by the first participant , to defer the teleconference and to capture the state of the teleconference call, the state including sufficient particulars to enable at least one of the participants to re-establish the teleconference call.

18. The teleconferencing system of claim 17, wherein the first participant can operate the call deferring mechanism to inform at least the calling participants of, an expected deference period.

19. The teleconferencing system of claim 17, wherein the call deferring mechanism causes addressing identifiers, relating to participants and to documents, to be recorded, whereby, when the call is re-established, the monitors of the workstations display a recreation of their respective displays at the time the call was deferred.

20. The teleconferencing system of claim 17, wherein the call deferring mechanism causes the images displayed on the monitor of each participant to be recorded when the teleconference is deferred, whereby each participant can access the recorded images after the call is deferred.

21. The teleconferencing system of claim 1, further comprising at least one of the group consisting of:

(a) a remote participant hold selection mechanism, operable by the first participant during a teleconference among at least the first, second and a third participant, that is capable of placing on hold at least the second participant while maintaining the teleconference with the third participant; and

(b) a remote participant disconnection mechanism, operable by the first participant during a teleconference among at least the first, second and a third participant, that is capable of disconnecting the second participant while maintaining the teleconference with the third participant.

22. A method for conducting a teleconference among a plurality of participants, comprising the steps of:

(a) detecting an incoming teleconference call, from at least one calling participant, at the workstation of a first participant during an active teleconference with a second participant;

(b) notifying the first participant of the identity of each of the calling participants ; and

(c) providing the first participant with the option of accepting the incoming teleconference call.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising the steps of:

(a) selecting a desired incoming call mode from one of an intercom mode and a telephone mode, wherein

(i) if telephone mode is selected, the first participant is notified of, and provided with the option of, accepting the incoming teleconference call, and

(ii) if intercom mode is selected, the incoming call is accepted automatically.

24. The method of claim 23, further comprising at least one of the steps selected from the group consisting of:

(a) blocking all incoming teleconference calls;

(b) notifying the calling participants that the first participant refuses to accept the call; and

(c) notifying the calling participants that an attempt has been made to establish the call but that the call has not yet been established.

25. The method of claim 22, further comprising the step of:

(a) informing the first participant that a priority teleconference call is being directed to the workstation of the first participant.

26. The method of claim 22, further comprising the steps of:

(a) detecting whether the first participant accepted the incoming conference call; and

(b) visually displaying, by the monitor at the workstation of the first participant, an indication that the calling participants attempted to call the first participant, if the first participant did not accept the teleconference call.

27. The method of claim 22, further comprising the steps of:

(a) placing the active teleconference on hold; and

(b) accepting the incoming teleconference call.

28. The method of claim 22, further comprising the step of:

(a) indicating the status of the call to the calling participants.

29. The method of claim 28, further comprising the step of:

(a) displaying the identity of the calling participants by the monitor at the workstation of the first participant.

30. The method of claim 22, further comprising the steps of:

(a) selecting a new participant from among a plurality of potential participants; and

(b) adding the new participant to the active teleconference.

31. The method of claim 22, further comprising the steps of:

(a) detecting, during the active teleconference, an attempt by the calling participants to initiate a second teleconference call with the first participant;

(b) notifying the first participant of the attempt; and

(c) adding the calling participants to the active teleconference.

32. The method of claim 22, further comprising at least one of the steps selected from the group consisting of:

(a) during a teleconference among at least the first, second and a third participant, placing on hold the second participant while maintaining the teleconference with the third participants; and

(b) during a teleconference among at least the first, second and a third participant, disconnecting the second participant while maintaining the teleconference with the third participant.

33. The method of claim 22, further comprising the steps of:

(a) moving AV signals among the workstations, the AV signals representing the images and/or voices of the participants;

(b) managing a videoconference during which the video image and spoken audio of at least one of the participants is produced by the monitors at the workstations of the other participants;

(c) supporting a maximum number of calls equal to N, where N is any integer, associated with a workstation; and

(d) enabling a participant, operating the workstation, when faced with M possible calls where M is an integer greater than N, to select N calls of the M possible calls.

34. The method of claim 22, further comprising the step of:

(a) notifying the calling participants that the first participant wishes to postpone the call instead of accepting it.

35. The method of claim 34, further comprising the step of informing the calling participants of an expected postponement period.

36. The method of claim 35, further comprising the steps of:

(a) capturing and saving particulars relating to the postponed incoming teleconference call; and

(b) later, initiating a teleconference call with the calling participants using the saved particulars.

37. The method of claim 22, further comprising the steps of:

(a) deferring the teleconference;

(b) capturing the state of the teleconference call; and

(c) enabling at least one of the participants to re-establish the teleconference call using the captured state.