Abstract:
A method and apparatus manage conference calls by receiving for each of participants a participant access code to identify a subconference call to which each of participants is assigned; forming a conference call of all participants; initiating subconference calls by a host of the conference call; transferring each of the participants into a subconference call identified by the participant access code of each of the participants; re-initiating the conference call by the host; and re-forming all of the participants back into the conference call.

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD 
     This invention relates to the management of conferences. 
     BACKGROUND 
     Within the prior art, it is well known for individuals to communicate information by having a group of participants within a conference. The conference may be an audio only conference or may include video and audio. In addition, the conference may be communicated over the telecommunication system or via the Internet. Also, the conference may be text only in which the participants communicate their information by transmitting text to other participants. In multimedia conferences, some combination of these media types is used. Often in a conference, it becomes desirable for the participants to break into smaller groups to discuss a particular issue. The smaller groups are referred to as subconferences. It is known in the prior art that the host can manually set up these subconferences. (The host is a participant who is controlling the conference.) Although such a manual operation for creating subconferences does work, it is time consuming and prone to mistakes. 
     SUMMARY 
     A method and apparatus manage conference calls by receiving for each of participants a participant access code to identify a subconference call to which each of participants is assigned; forming a conference call of all participants; initiating subconference calls by a host of the conference call; transferring each of the participants into a subconference call identified by the participant access code of each of the participants; re-initiating the conference call by the host; and re-forming all of the participants back into the conference call. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING 
         FIG. 1  illustrates an embodiment of a system; 
         FIG. 2  illustrates another embodiment of a system; 
         FIG. 3  illustrates, in flowchart form, an embodiment of system operations; 
         FIG. 4  illustrates, in flowchart form, another embodiment of systems operations; 
         FIG. 5  illustrates, in flowchart form, another embodiment of systems operations; and 
         FIG. 6  illustrates, in block diagram form, a control computer for controlling a switching system or a IP switching system. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       FIG. 1  illustrates an embodiment. Enterprise switching system  100  is providing services for terminals  109 - 110 . In addition, enterprise switching system  100  is providing conference operations for cellular switching system  118  via digital trunk  104  and for terminals  112 - 113  via WAN  120  and IP trunk  114 . Enterprise switching system  100  is controlled by control computer  101 . Switching network  102  provides communication of audio information among the elements  104 ,  106 ,  108 ,  107 , and  103 . In addition, switching network  102  provides control communication for control computer  101  to the various elements of enterprise switching system  100 . 
     Within Enterprise switching system  100 , control computer  101  provides conferencing for terminals  109 - 114  or some subset of these terminals using conference circuit  106 . Terminals  109 - 114  may provide various media types for their users to participate in conferences as is well known by those skilled in the art. One terminal is used by the host who controls a conference. As is well known in the art, from time to time, participants may also take turns being the host. When the host decides, a conference will be split into subconferences with each subconference having a subset of the participants of the conference. The host can indicate this decision by utilizing a keyboard on the host terminal, by a spoken command, a button on the terminal, or by utilizing multi-frequency dialing tones or by other mechanisms well known to those skilled in the art that can be envisioned for providing such an indication from a terminal. Each participant has an access code which determines in which subconference they will become active. 
     In one embodiment, each participant enters their access code when they join the conference. The access code may have been distributed by e-mail or other mechanisms before the conference started. 
     In another embodiment, each participant is assigned an access code based on the organization of which they are part. In this embodiment, control computer  101  maintains the access codes for the organizations and a list to which organization each participant belongs. For example, within a corporation or university, such information is generally available to an Enterprise switching system. In addition to organizations, other groupings of participants could be used to determine access codes. 
     In another embodiment, during the conference and when the host determines that the subconferences should be started, each participant will enter their access code. In addition, the host may determine another time when each participant should enter their access code. 
       FIG. 2  illustrates a second system. Control computer  202  controls the operations of conference system  206  and terminals  207 - 208  via WAN  204 . Telephone calls are communicated to public switching network  201  and cellular switching system  212  via IP trunks  203  from WAN  204 . 
       FIG. 3  illustrates, in flowchart form, operations  300 . After being started in block  301 , decision block  302  determines if a conference has been initiated. If the answer is no, control is returned back to decision block  302 . If the answer is yes in decision block  302 , control is transferred to decision block  303 . The latter decision block determines if a participant to the conference is accessing the conference. If the answer is yes in decision block  303 , block  311  receives the participant&#39;s access code which defines the subconference to which the participant has been previously assigned. This assigning of access codes may be done by e-mail or by other methods well known to those skilled in the art. Upon receiving the access code, the participant is added to the conference by block  311  before control is transferred to decision block  312 . If the answer in decision block  303  is no, control is transferred to decision block  304  whose operations are discussed later. 
     Upon receiving control from block  311  or decision block  304  upon the result being yes, decision block  312  determines if the host is designating the start of the subconferences. If the answer is yes, block  313  breaks the conference into the subconferences based on the access code for each of the participants before transferring control to decision block  307 . Participants are assigned to the subconferences corresponding to their access codes. If the answer in decision block  312  is no, control is transferred to decision block  306 . 
     After execution of block  313  or decision block  306  resulting in a yes decision, decision block  307  determines if the host is designating the end of the subconferences. If the answer is no, control is transferred to decision block  309 . If the answer is yes in decision block  307 , control is transferred to block  308  which ends the subconferences and reforms the conference before transferring control to decision block  309 . All participants rejoin the main conference. 
     Decision block  309  is responsive to receiving control (from block  308  or decision block  306  upon a no result) to determine if the conference has been ended by the host. If the answer is no, control is transferred back to decision block  303 . If the answer is yes, control is transferred back to decision block  302 . 
     Returning to decision block  303 , if a result in decision block  303  is no, then control is transferred to decision block  304 . Decision block  304  determines if the conference has been already started. If the answer is no in decision block  304 , control is transferred back to decision block  302 . If the answer in decision block  304  is yes, control is transferred to decision block  312  whose operations have already been explained. 
     Returning to decision block  312 , if the answer in decision block  312  is no, control is transferred to decision block  306 . Decision block  306  determines if the subconferences have already been started. If the answer is yes, control is transferred to decision block  307  whose operations have already been described. If the answer in decision block  306  is no, control is transferred to decision block  309  whose operations have already been described. 
       FIG. 4  illustrates, in flowchart form, operations  400 . In this embodiment, each participant&#39;s access code is assigned on the basis of the organization to which they belong. Blocks  401 - 409  and blocks  412 - 413  are identical in operation to blocks  301 - 309  and blocks  312 - 313  of  FIG. 3 . Blocks  411  and  410  function in the following manner: Upon receiving control from decision block  403 , block  411  determines the participant&#39;s organization. This may be determined automatically for example by associating the participant&#39;s caller ID with an organizational identifier. After determining the participant&#39;s organization, block  411  determines the access code for that organization. These operations may be done utilizing well known lookup tables or accessing a database. Block  411  then transfers control to block  410 . Block  410  assigns the determined access code to the participant before transferring control to decision block  412 . Note, that decision block  412  receives control either from block  410  or from decision block  404  if the answer is yes. 
       FIG. 5  illustrates, in flowchart form, operations  500 . In this embodiment, each participant&#39;s access code is received from the participant during the conference upon the decision of the host. Blocks  501 - 509  and blocks  512 - 513  are identical in operation to blocks  301 - 309  and blocks  312 - 313  of  FIG. 3 . Blocks  511  and  510  function in the following manner: Note, decision block  512  transfers control to block  510  not to block  513  as in  FIG. 3  upon the decision being yes. Also, block  513  receives control from block  510  not from decision block  512 . Consider now the operation of blocks  511  and  510 . If the answer in decision block  503  is yes, block  511  places the participant in the conference. With respect to block  510 , after receiving control from decision block  512 , block  510  requests and receives access codes from all of the participants. After receiving the requested information, block  510  transfers control to block  513 . Note, one skilled in the art may well envision that block  510  may be located in other parts of  FIG. 5  so that the participants are requested to enter their access codes at other times then when the subconferences are started. 
       FIG. 6  illustrates, in block diagram form, one embodiment of a control computer of  FIGS. 1 and 2 . Processor  602  provides overall control of the control computer by execution of programs stored in memory  601  as well as data stored and retrieved from data  618 . Note, a processor such as processor  602  is also referred to by those skilled in the art as a central processing unit or a computer. Operating system  614  performs overall control of processor  602 . Call processing routine  616  controls the telecommunication operations. Control of the conference bridge is provided via control routine  619 . Access code acquisition is performed by routine  617 . Conference control is performed by routine  615 . Interface drivers  621  provide the interface software for devices connected to processor  602  via interfaces  603 . Conference control routine  615  and access code acquisition routine  617  may not be executed by processor  602  if these operations are performed by the conference circuit or system. Processor  602  communicates with participants&#39; terminals and conference circuit or system via switching network and WAN interface  608 . 
     When the operations of a computer, processor or server are implemented in software, it should be noted that the software can be stored on any computer-readable medium for use by or in connection with any computer related system or method. In the context of this document, a computer-readable medium is an electronic, magnetic, optical, or other physical device or means that can contain or store a computer program for use by or in connection with a computer related system or method. The computer, processor or server can be embodied in any computer-readable medium for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device such as a computer-based system, processor-containing system, or other system that can fetch the instructions from the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device and execute the instructions. In the context of this document, a “computer-readable medium” can be any means that can store the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. For example, the computer-readable medium can be, but is not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium would include the following: an electrical connection (electronic) having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette (magnetic), a random access memory (RAM) (electronic), a read-only memory (ROM) (electronic), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM, EEPROM, or Flash memory) (electronic), and a portable compact disc read-only memory (CDROM) (optical). 
     In an alternative embodiment, where the computer, processor or server is implemented in hardware, the telephone set, control computer or server can be implemented with any or a combination of the following technologies, which are each well known in the art: a discrete logic circuit(s) having logic gates for implementing logic functions upon data signals, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) having appropriate combinational logic gates, a programmable gate array(s) (PGA), a field programmable gate array (FPGA), etc. 
     Of course, various changes and modifications to the illustrated embodiments described above will be apparent to those skilled in the art. These changes and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention and without diminishing its intending advantages. It is therefore intended that such changes and modifications be covered by the following claims except insofar as limited by the prior art.