Patent ID: 8040874

Claim:
A method for automatically discovering the common multimedia service capability of at least two user terminals when a voice call is initiated over a circuit-switched network from a first one of the user terminals handled by a calling party to the second one of the user terminals that is handled by a called party, the first user terminal is capable of running simultaneously both a circuit voice call in the circuit-switched network and a shared multimedia service session supported by a packet-switched network, the other user terminal's multimedia capability may be unknown to a user of the first user terminal, the method comprising the following steps of: notifying a network storage by sending a capability request concerning the user terminals of the calling party and called party when a trigger indication has been generated by the circuit-switched network; analyzing the response including the requested multimedia service capabilities; responding to said user terminals with information regarding matching multimedia capabilities and alerting users of the user terminals of a possibility to start a packet-switched shared multimedia service session only if at least one common multimedia service capability is found for the user terminals; wherein said notifying, analyzing, and responding steps are performed prior to the packet-switched shared multimedia service session being initiated, and initiating the shared multimedia service session only if at least one common multimedia service capability is found for the user terminals, wherein the network storage comprises a terminal capability database.