Patent ID: 8320874

Claim:
A method for establishing an incident communications network that enables interoperable communications among communications resources controlled by multiple organizations during an incident involving emergency or pre-planned multi-organization communications, wherein an administrator controls a set of communications resources within an organization, comprising: upon an occurrence of an incident, establishing an incident identifier associated with the incident; establishing communications among communications resources controlled by administrators that accept an invitation to be electronically coupled to the incident communications network, wherein communications among administrators and communications resources are exchanged on one or more communications channels associated with the incident identifier; and granting communication rights to communications resources, wherein the rights granted for a communications resource are determined by an administrator that controls the communications resource, wherein an administrator retains control of communications resources that were under the control of the administrator prior to the start of the incident, wherein control is the ability to determine the capabilities of the communications resource that are made available to other organizations within the incident communications network.