Source: http://www.google.de/patents/US8068854?hl=de
Timestamp: 2013-05-24 08:37:07
Document Index: 33986768

Matched Legal Cases: ['arty 124', 'arty 302', 'arty 302', 'arty 302', 'arty 302', 'arty 302', 'arty 302']

Patent US8068854 - Location-based forwarding of a communication - Google PatenteSuche Bilder Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive Mehr » Erweiterte Patentsuche | Webprotokoll | Anmelden Erweiterte Patentsuche PatenteThe invention provides a method and a system for forwarding a telephone call. The inventive method includes receiving a telephone call from a calling party line to a called party line, determining a location of the called party, determining a proximity of the location of the called party to one or more...http://www.google.de/patents/US8068854?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US8068854 - Location-based forwarding of a communication Ver�ffentlichungsnummerUS8068854 B2PublikationstypErteilung Anmeldenummer12/646,461 Ver�ffentlichungsdatum29. Nov. 2011Eingetragen23. Dez. 2009 Priorit�tsdatum27. Aug. 2001Auch ver�ffentlicht unterUS7006833US7664510US20100098237US20120027192 Ver�ffentlichungsnummerUS 8068854 B2US 8068854B2US8068854 B2US8068854B2 ErfinderSunil H. ContractorUrspr�nglich Bevollm�chtigterAt&T Intellectual Property I, LpBellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation US-Klassifikation455/456.1455/417Internationale KlassifikationH04W4/16H04M3/42H04W24/00 UnternehmensklassifikationH04W4/16H04M2242/14H04M3/42263 Europ�ische KlassifikationH04M 3/42M7ReferenzenPatentzitate (29)Nichtpatentzitate (10) Referenziert von (1)Externe LinksUSPTO USPTO-Zuordnung EspacenetLocation-based forwarding of a communicationUS 8068854 B2 Zusammenfassung The invention provides a method and a system for forwarding a telephone call. The inventive method includes receiving a telephone call from a calling party line to a called party line, determining a location of the called party, determining a proximity of the location of the called party to one or more subscriber locations, and directing the telephone call to the one or more subscriber locations based on the determined proximity. The subscriber locations may be predefined by the called party. The location of the called party may be determined using a global position system and/or a radio frequency signal, for example.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 11/276,392, now U.S. Patent No. 7,664,510 filed Feb. 27, 2006, which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 09/939,855, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,006,833, filed on Aug. 27, 2001, which are expressly incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
TECHNICAL FIELD The invention relates generally to the forwarding of a communication based on a detected location, and more particularly to the forwarding of telephone calls to a certain location based on the detected location of a subscribing customer.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION For some time the telecommunications industry has provided services to allow a subscriber to receive calls while away from a �subscribed� location. For example, �call forwarding� is a service that allows a subscriber to redirect calls directed to a residence or place of work, for example. In addition, the wireless telephone permits a user to receive calls at any location. These solutions have migrated from specialty services, directed to frequently traveling businesspersons, to nearly all telephone users.
For many, however, call forwarding services often are too complicated to set up and too limited in their capabilities. For example, traditional call forwarding required the subscriber to remember to designate the forwarded locations before leaving the place from which calls were to be forwarded. As a result, if the subscriber forgot to activate the call forwarding service before leaving home, for example, the subscriber would have to return to home to do so. Of course, this was often an unacceptable alternative. �Flexible Call Forwarding� offered an improved solution over traditional call forwarding. Flexible Call Forwarding permitted the user to redirect calls from one location to another, using any station in the telecommunications network. However, even with Flexible Call Forwarding, a subscriber must actively enter instructions to the telephone network.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The invention provides a method and a system for forwarding a telephone call. The inventive method includes receiving a telephone call from a calling party line to a called party line, determining a location of the called party, determining a proximity of the location of the called party to one or more subscriber locations, and directing the telephone call to the one or more subscriber locations based on the determined proximity. The subscriber locations may be predefined by the called party. The location of the called party may be determined using a global position system and/or a radio frequency signal, for example. The subscriber locations may be identified by a directory number and include any of the following: a wire line telephone, a public pay telephone, and/or a wireless communication device. The inventive method may further include forwarding the telephone call to a wireless communication device, a voice mail system, and/or another user, based on the determined proximity. The proximity of the called party to the subscriber location may be determined by at least one of the following: a service node, a customer premise equipment unit, a service control point, a location detection device, and/or positioning determining entity (PDE), but is not limited to these devices.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Telecommunications System Overview FIG. 1 provides a block diagram of a telecommunications network 100 well known to those skilled in the art. Telecommunications network 100 includes both wire line and wireless portions. Although a complete telecommunications network may include other devices that are not shown in FIG. 1, the components illustrated in FIG. 1 provide a brief overview of the components relevant to provide a context for the invention.
It should be appreciated that a party making a telephone call, or initiating any kind of communication, is referred to herein as the �calling party.� The party intended to be communicated with by the calling party is referred to herein as the �called party.� The telephone number associated with the telephone of the calling party is referred to herein as the �calling number.� The telephone number associated with the telephone of the called party is referred to herein as the �called number.� Each of the party's may have numerous telephone devices. For example, a called party's telephone may be described as a �home telephone,� �work telephone,� and �wireless telephone,� for example.
Calling party telephone 121 and called party's home telephone 124 represent �subscriber locations.� The subscriber locations may connect certain customer premise equipment (CPE), like telephone stations, facsimile machines, computers, modems. It should be appreciated that subscriber locations also may include wireless communication devices, like a wireless telephone, for example. Also, it should be appreciated that subscriber locations may include public telephones, like pay telephones, for example. Therefore, a subscriber location may include any termination on a network (wireless or wire line) that is capable of receiving and/or transmitting a communication on network 100.
Calling party telephone 121 and called party's home telephone 124 communicate with SSP 109 and SSP 123, respectively, over telephone lines 103 and 104. Telephone lines 103 and 104 are sometimes referred to as the �loop.� Telephone lines 103 and 104 also may be referred to as a �calling line� and the terms will be used interchangeably. The term �communication� or �call� is used herein to include any data that may be exchanged between calling party telephone 121 and a called party 124 over a telephone system, and is not limited to voice-based communication.
Each active calling line is assigned a telephone number, which typically is a ten-digit identifier. The term �telephone number� is used in its generally understood meaning to be the number which is dialed or input into telephone's keypad by a calling party or source to reach a telephone station on a calling line associated with the dialed telephone number. A telephone number associated with telecommunications network 100 is referred to herein as a �wire line number.� A telephone number associated with a wireless telephone system is referred to herein as a �wireless number.� It should be appreciated that the invention may include communications directed to more than just telephone devices. In this case, the telephone number may be considered to be any designator capable of identifying a device on a network, analogous to an electronic mail (email) address, and/or interne protocol (IP) address, for example.
In a typical application, when calling party telephone 121 dials a called number, the calling party's local SSP (i.e., SSP 109) communicates with the called party's SSP (i.e., SSP 123) over a trunk line 135. SSP 123 rings called party's home telephone 124. Each SSP serves a designated group of calling lines, and thus, the SSP that serves a particular calling line may be referred to as its �serving switch� or �local SSP.� SSP 109 and 123 are each programmable switches that recognize AIN-type calls, launch queries to intelligent devices in the AIN (e.g., SCP 114), and receive instructions and data from the intelligent devices to further process and route calls. In particular, a trigger 117 is a flag or signaling interface that charges SSP 123 to launch a query to SCP 114 (via STP 102) for call processing instructions. Trigger 117 may be associated with a particular type of calling service, for example, call forwarding.
Subscriber locations may communicate to their SSPs through an additional private switching system, called a �private branch exchange� (PBX) (not shown). A PBX is the central switching component for a private communications network. It should be appreciated that although the invention is described in the context of the public service telephone network, the invention may be applied in the context of a private network as well.
Much of the service logic intelligence of the AIN system resides in SCP 114. SCP 114 is in communication with STP 102 over data link 129. SCP 114 includes a data store 116 and a Service Package Application (SPA) 115. In practice, SCP 114 includes a plurality of SPAs that are used in connection with or as part of data store 116 in the application of telecommunication services or enhanced features (e.g., toll-free �800� calling). SPA 115 typically is a series of computer-executable instructions located on a computer-readable medium that perform certain processes that facilitate a certain telephone service. The processes of SPA 115 often retrieve data, necessary to complete the appropriate processing from database 116.
Various triggers can by configured for each telephone number and/or for each SSP. Triggers may be configured to affect the calling party, the called party, or both. For example, an �off-hook� trigger may be set on the calling number. If this trigger is set, SSP 109 initiates a query to SCP 114 every time that calling number line is taken off-hook. SCP 114 then processes the query to determine how the call should be processed and replies to SSP 109 with instructions on how the call should be processed. Alternatively, a trigger may be set on the called line number, as with trigger 117, that will trigger an AIN message to be sent.
A telephone call may result in several statuses. A busy status occurs when called party's telephone 124 is busy or �off-hook.� For example, the called party may currently be using the telephone. A no-answer status occurs when there is no answer on called party's telephone 124 after a predefined time. For example, the called party may not be near telephone 124 to answer. Alternatively, if the called party has forwarded their calls to a second telephone, a no-answer status will occur if there is no answer on the second telephone. An answer status occurs when the called party answers the telephone, for example, by taking telephone 124 off-hook in response to the telephone ringing. An answer status also occurs when an answering machine or voice messaging system answers the telephone call. Therefore, the predefined time is ideally set to trigger a no-answer status before an answering machine or a voice messaging system answers the call. If however, an answering machine or voice messaging system answers a call, an answer status will be triggered.
Wireless transceiver tower 126 covers a particular geographic region called a �cell.� Wireless transceiver tower 126 may include sending capability and/or receiving capability. Each wireless transceiver tower 126 in a system has a limited number of speech (i.e., data) channels available for communication and at least one control channel for sending and receiving messaging and routing commands. Wireless device 127 may request a speech channel from wireless transceiver tower 126 by sending a message over a control channel. Wireless transceiver tower 126 may or may not grant the request depending on current speech channel occupancy.
Each wireless device 127 has one MSC assigned as its Home MSC 119. Each MSC typically has an associated HLR and a VLR, as shown in FIG. 1. Each HLR keeps data on each of the wireless devices assigned to Home MSC 119. Included in the data residing in HLR 105 is the on/off status of each wireless device 127 assigned to Home MSC 119. When wireless device 127 tries to communicate through an MSC that is not the user's Home MSC 119, the user is considered a �visiting� wireless telephone and is tracked and monitored by Foreign MSC 118. Foreign MSC 118 reports information about the visiting wireless telephone to HLR 134 assigned to the wireless device 127, including the on/off status of the visiting wireless telephone. Communication between HLRs and VLRs typically use IS-41 specification protocol, well known to those skilled in the art. Home MSC 119 is in communication with Foreign MSC 118 via a plurality of trunk circuits 136.
As shown in FIG. 3, a system 300 includes many of the telecommunications network components described with reference to system 100 in FIG. 1. In addition, system 300 includes a location detection system 301 in communication with SCP 114. It should be appreciated that the term location detection system and �position detection device� (PDE) may be used interchangeably. Also, as shown in FIG. 3, system 300 includes a called party 302 in possession of a location-tracking device 304 capable of communicating location-based signals 303 to location detection system 301. It should be appreciated that location-tracking device 304 may be any commercially available device capable of signaling its location (and therefore the location of a called party in possession). Such signaling may include any technique capable of providing location information, including a global positioning system (GPS) device, and/or a radio frequency-based (rf) device, for example, but is not limited to such.
Location detection system 301 may include receivers and/or transmitters capable of communicating with a called party 302. In particular, location detection system 301 acts as a signaling �base station� to process signal 303 so as to identify a location of the called party 302. Therefore, location detection system 301 also may manipulate signal 303 in such a way that a traditional network component, like SCP 114 in a typical telecommunications network can properly use the data provided by signal 301. This may include using mathematical algorithms to convert the location data provided by location-tracking device 304 to data understandable by a component of the telecommunications network.
FIG. 6 is a block diagram of another technique for forwarding a communication based on the location of called party 302. As shown in FIG. 6, called party 302 is in possession of location-tracking device 304 that is capable of transmitting a location signal 601 and/or 605 to receivers 603 and 602, respectively, located on a particular telephone. Therefore, the invention contemplates allowing called party 302 to communicate his/her, location directly to the nearest telephone unit. Such communication may occur while the telephone is �on-hook� or �off-hook.� It should be appreciated that receivers 602 and 603 may be integrated within the telephones or may be separate devices that are coupled to the telephones.
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Febr. 2012Bellsouth Intellectual Property CorporationLocation-Based Forwarding of a Communication* Vom Pr�fer zitiertDrehenOriginalbildGoogle-Startseite - Sitemap - USPTO-Bulk-Downloads - Datenschutzerkl�rung - Nutzungsbedingungen - �ber Google Patente - Feedback gebenDaten bereitgestellt von IFI CLAIMS Patent Services.© 2012 Google