Mechanism to initiate calls between browsers without predefined call signaling protocol

• US 9,009,741 B2
• Filed: 02/04/2013
• Issued: 04/14/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/04/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Futurewei Technologies Incorporated (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Futurewei Technologies Incorporated (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Li, Li, Chou, Wu, Cai, Tao
• Primary Examiner(s): DAO, TUAN C.
• Application Number:
  US13/758,250
• Publication Number:
  US 20140223453A1
• Time in Patent Office: 799 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 719/330
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/547 Remote procedure calls [RPC]; Web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]

Abstract

An apparatus comprising a processor configured to receive an instruction to place a call to a remote user, load a communications application, wherein the communications application comprises an isolated security context, request a list of one or more supported communications protocols from a server, receive the list of one or more supported communications protocols from the server, select a protocol from the list of one or more supported communications protocols, load the selected communications protocol in the isolated security context, and initiate the call through the communications application with the remote server using the selected communications protocol.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a receiver;

a transmitter; and

a processor coupled to the receiver and the transmitter and configured to cause the apparatus to;

receive, via the receiver, an instruction to place a call to a remote user;

load a communications application, wherein the communications application is configured to load a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) based Inline Frame (iframe) to act as an isolated security context;

request, via the transmitter, a list of one or more supported communications protocols from a server;

receive, via the receiver, the list of one or more supported communications protocols from the server;

select a communication protocol from the list of one or more supported communications protocols;

dynamically obtain from the server, via the receiver, a communication protocol library that provides signaling implementations for the communication protocol selected from the list received from the server;

load the communication protocol library obtained from the server into the HTML based iframe to prevent remote user access to sensitive local data stored by the communications application; and

initiate the call to the remote user through the communications application using the communication protocol library obtained dynamically from the server,

wherein the signaling implementations provided by the communication protocol library comprise a portable state machine definition associated with the selected communications protocol, a message format definition associated with the selected communications protocol, or combinations thereof.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is initially configured to cause the apparatus to communicate with the remote user using a first protocol, wherein the remote user employs a second protocol for communications, and wherein the selected communications protocol is the second protocol.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the communications application is implemented in JavaScript.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the communications application is a Web Real Time Communication (WebRTC) application.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the call is selected from a group consisting of:

a video call, a video chat, and a Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing session.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to load the communications application into a browser operating on the apparatus.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to dynamically obtain the communication protocol library from the server by:

receiving, via the receiver, a list of communication protocol libraries corresponding to the supported communications protocols from the server; and

selecting the communication protocol library that corresponds to the communication protocol selected from the list.

8. A method comprising:

receiving an instruction to place a call to a remote user;

loading a communications application, wherein the communications application is configured to load a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) based Inline Frame (iframe) to act as an isolated security context;

requesting a list of one or more supported communication protocol libraries from a server;

receiving the list of the one or more supported communication protocol libraries from the server;

selecting a communication protocol library from the list of the one or more supported communication protocol libraries;

dynamically obtaining from the server the communication protocol library selected from the list, wherein the selected communication protocol library comprises portable signaling state machine codes;

loading the selected communication protocol library obtained from the server into the HTML based iframe; and

initiating the call to the remote user through the communications application by executing the portable signaling state machine codes in the selected communication protocol library obtained dynamically from the server,

wherein the portable signaling state machine codes are executed in the HTML based iframe to prevent remote user access to sensitive local data stored by the communications application, and

wherein the selected communication protocol library obtained from the server further comprises a message format definition associated with the selected communications protocol library.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the communications application is implemented in JavaScript.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the communications application is a Web Real Time Communication (WebRTC) application.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the communications application is loaded in a browser.

12. A computer program product comprising computer executable instructions stored on a non-transitory computer readable medium such that when executed by a processor cause the processor to:

receive an instruction to place a call to a remote user;

load a communications application, wherein the communications application is configured to load a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) based Inline Frame (iframe) to act as an isolated security context;

request a list of one or more supported communication protocol libraries from a server;

receive the list of the one or more supported communication protocol libraries from the server;

select a communication protocol library from the list of the one or more supported communication protocol libraries;

dynamically obtain from the server the communication protocol library selected from the list, wherein the selected communication protocol library comprises portable signaling state machine codes;

load the selected communication protocol library obtained from the server into the HTML based iframe; and

initiate the call to the remote user through the communications application by executing the portable signaling state machine codes in the selected communication protocol library obtained dynamically from the server,

wherein the portable signaling state machine codes are executed in the HTML based iframe to prevent remote user access to sensitive local data stored by the communications application, and

wherein the selected communication protocol library obtained dynamically from the server further comprises a message format definition associated with the selected communications protocol library.

13. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the processor is initially configured to communicate with the remote user using a first protocol, wherein the remote user employs a second protocol for communications, and wherein the selected communications protocol is the second protocol.

14. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the communications application is a Web Real Time Communication (WebRTC) application implemented in JavaScript, and wherein the selected communication protocol library obtained dynamically from the server is implemented in JavaScript.

15. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to load the application is into a local browser.