Patent ID: 8718254

Claim:
A method for scheduling conferences, comprising: receiving a conference request, the conference request including an invitee list, a prioritized list of preferred media types, and a time for a conference associated with the conference request; requesting a presence of respective subscriber terminals associated with respective invitees associated with the invitee list from an internet protocol multimedia subsystem presence server; receiving presence indications of the respective subscriber terminals from the internet protocol multimedia subsystem presence server; receiving an invitee device list associated with the subscriber terminals, wherein the invitee device list includes a naming authority pointer record that translates addresses of the subscriber terminals into session initiation protocol addresses for reaching the subscriber terminals; determining a mode of communication for requesting the conference with the respective invitees via the respective subscriber terminals based on the presence indications; requesting the conference with the respective invitees associated with the invitee list via the respective subscriber terminals as referred to in the invitee device list via the determined mode of communication; determining whether the respective invitees can be scheduled for the conference based on whether the respective invitees are reachable via the respective subscriber terminals; determining whether a timer has exceeded a deadline for scheduling the conference; scheduling the conference between a conference requestor associated with the conference request and available ones of the respective invitees when mandatory attendees, included within the respective invitees, are available and if the timer has exceeded the deadline for scheduling the conference; and attempting to communicate with unconfirmed invitees using the subscriber terminals devices that are indicated as being available from a presence list when the timer has not exceeded the deadline for scheduling the conference.