Patent ID: 9455841
Filing Date: 2016-09-27
CPC Classification: H04L,H04W

Claim Text:
1. A method of controlling Group establishment for an IP multimedia communication service facilitated over a communications network, wherein an established Group comprises a set of member Users each of which possesses a User Equipment and, at Group establishment, members' User Equipments are sent a group advertisement request to join the Group by a server of said communications network, the method comprising: within said communications network, defining for each of a set of Users of said service, a Group membership policy defining Groups for which the User allows or rejects proposed membership; prior to Group establishment, receiving a list of Users selected for proposed Group membership, wherein the list of Users selected for proposed Group membership contains a parameter which indicates that a User of the list of Users has been found using a search; prior to Group establishment, for each User selected for possible inclusion in the Group, using the Group membership policy for that User to determine whether the User allows or rejects proposed membership in the Group; and prior to Group establishment, selectively sending group advertisement requests only to those Users selected for possible inclusion for which it is determined that they have allowed proposed membership in the Group based on using the Group membership policy for each of the Users to determine whether each of the Users allows or rejects proposed membership in the Group.