WO2012018292A1

WO2012018292A1 - A media means for a telephone device

Info

Publication number: WO2012018292A1
Application number: PCT/SE2011/000147
Authority: WO
Inventors: Adrian Hinz
Original assignee: Greenwin Ltd.; Prytz, Sven-Erik
Priority date: 2010-08-03
Filing date: 2011-08-03
Publication date: 2012-02-09
Also published as: WO2012018292A8

Abstract

The invention relates to a system adapted to media means assisting a person making telephone calls during calling up. Moreover, the invention allows companies to inform a caller about advertisements, discounts and other offers during a live call (18) to the company in question. Other persons having a home page or business cards could through the invention display those on a telephone device (10) screen as a media means.

Description

Title

A Media Means for a Telephone Device

Technical Field

The present invention pertains to a system adapted to media means assisting a person making telephone calls during calling up.

Background art

It is well known and frustrating for a caller to hear a voice that tells him/her which buttons to push when they for instance are calling a company. There can be as much as 9 buttons to chose from or even more, and for every button you have to listen to a voice that is prompting you further. The present invention as one aim has a solution to this problem.

Summary of the invention

The present invention regards a system adapted to media means assisting a person making telephone calls during calling up. The present invention as one aim has a solution amongst others to the above described problem.

Furthermore, the present invention allows companies to inform a caller about advertisements, discounts and other offers during a live call to the company in question. Other persons having home pages or business cards could through the invention display those on a telephone device screen as a media means.

Hence the present invention sets forth a system adapted to media means assisting a person making telephone calls through a telephone signal connection during calling up. The invention comprises:

telephone and network signal connections utilized to establish communication between at least one of a caller and a receiver in the system;

a caller telephone device having at least its telephone identity credentials stored through a server and in connection to a portal in the server;

the caller telephone device being provided an applet to be stored in the telephone which connects the telephone device to the portal residing in the server, which provides the media means via the applet when calling up a party having the media means to deliver;

a receiver means with telephone capabilities at the called party having at least its telephone identity credentials stored in the server in connection to the portal and the media means being provided a caller telephone device during an actual call session; and a screen connected to the callers telephone device, displaying the media means on the screen through the applet.

In one embodiment of the invention the media means is a menu prompting the caller to choose a provided service. Another embodiment provides that a caller also has his/her media means stored in the server.

Brief description of the drawings

Henceforth reference is had to the accompanied drawings and its related text, whereby the present invention is described through given examples and provided

embodiments for a better understanding of the invention, wherein:

Fig. 1 is illustrating a system to assist a person calling a telephone number in accordance with the present invention;

Fig. 2 is schematically illustrating accounts navigation in accordance with the present invention;

Fig. 3 is illustrating an accounts navigation window in accordance with the present invention;

Fig. 4 schematically illustrates registration of a user in accordance with the present invention.

Fig. 5 is illustrating a window where the registration is agreed to in accordance with the present invention;

Fig. 6 is illustrating establishing of a call in accordance with the present invention;

Fig. 7 is illustrating a call history in accordance with the present invention; Fig. 8 is illustrating GWC user utilization cases in accordance with the present invention;

Fig. 9 is illustrating a call establishing procedure in accordance with the present invention.

Fig. 10 is illustrating a user in an off-line mode in accordance with the present invention; and

Fig. 11 is illustrating an I phone © with applets in accordance with the present invention.

Detailed description of preferred embodiments

The present invention provides a system adapted to media means assisting a person making telephone calls during calling up. It is known and frustrating for a caller to hear a voice that tells you which buttons to push when you are calling a company. There can be as much as 9 or more buttons to chose from or even more, and for every button you have to listen to a voice that is prompting you further. The present invention as one aim has a solution to this problem.

Moreover, the present invention allows companies to inform a caller about advertisements, discounts and other offers during a live call to the company in question. Other persons having a home page or business cards could through the invention display those on a telephone device screen as a media means. A telephone device in the sense of the present invention could be any device being able to transfer a telephone call such as voice over the Internet protocol (VoIP) through a computer or cellular phone connection, cellular phones, personal digital assistance (PDA), public switched telephone network (PSTN) with phones that have a screen, Iphone ® and other like android phones operated by applets. The working name of the present invention is GreenWinCall ® (GWC).

In one embodiment this is accomplished through a system as depicted in Fig. 1. The system consists of a telephone device 10 of a caller/user such a device can be of the type as mentioned above. A gateway server 12 is depicted, which controls the registering of users 10, 14 and distribution of media assisting a person making telephone calls during calling up through for instance a menu, advertisements, discounts and other offers during a live call to the company in question, which is displayed on the telephone device 10 screen.

The recipient/receiver of a call has his/her own telephone means as described above, or a switch or other known advanced telephone devices for receiving calls. The telephone devices 10, 14 are in connection with the server 12 through

Internet/intranet/network 16 through signal connections 20, 22 over Internet 16, and to the server 12 through Internet 16 and a signal connection 24. At the same time a call is established between device 10 and 12 through a signal connection 18. When the users of the telephone devices 10, 12 are correctly registered in the server 12 with at least there telephone credentials/ID, and the receiver of a call has stored its media means in the server 12, the media means is transmitted to the telephone device 12 simultaneously as the call is in process between devices 10 and 14.

A media means can be a menu with choices of call alternatives to the receiver 14, or advertisements, homepages, business cards or the like, thus assisting/aiding the calling parties to proceed a call in a smooth fashion and quicker then by listening to a person providing alternatives through push buttons.

The gateway server 12 is in one embodiment of the invention provided the following software: Term Description

Tomcat: Java Servlet Container, is used to run GWC web application.

MySQL : MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS) that runs as a server providing multi-user access.

OS. OS is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, servers. Hence, in one embodiment of the present invention, the requirements to server side software components required for normal operation of the GreenWin Call server 12 software developed in the scope of GWC are as follows. There are no strict requirements to the hosted operation system. It is recommended to utilize Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP2 32 bit operation system. The following software products are required for operation of the server software. Products are listed in the installation order:

1. Java - http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp

Java SE Development Kit (JDK) and Runtime Environment (JRE), JDK 6 Update 20

2. Tomcat 6 - http://tomcat.apache.org/Apache Tomcat is an open source software implementation of the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages technologies.

http://apache.vc.ukrtel.net/tomcat/tomcat-6/v6.0.26/bin/apache-tomcat-6.0.26- windows-x86.zip.

3. MySQL 5.1 - ht^://dev.mysqlxom/downloads/mysql/5.1.html

A GWN administrator is able to view lists of accounts, view particular account details: User Name, User Phone Number, and User Email. See Fig. 2 and the accounts navigation window in Fig. 3. A GWN Member can register in a GWC system to become a GWC user. During registration a user specifies his/her credentials such as name, phone number, phone model (from a supported phones list), password and confirm a password, rules and license agreement acceptance check box and link, and boots protection.

After registration a SIP account should be created in CMPOIP system with SIP number identical to user's international phone number without leading "+" character. SIP is a Session Initiation protocol (SIP) for instance described in " SIP for Mobile Applications, Henning Schulzrinne, Dept. of Computer Science, Columbia University, New York, New York, schulzrinne@cs.columbia.edu, VON Developer's Conference Summer 2000 (Boston), July 18, 2000 - The Road Ahead".

Moreover, an email box should be created on the GWC Gateway server 12 with an address combined from "GWC-" strings, country code in letters (for example "SE" for

Sweden) and SIP number. An address domain can be greenwinnetwork.com. A user access to the system should be performed through a personal URL combined and based on a user SIP number.

For example for a user with phone number +46736739328, the following accounts will be created:

SIP number: 46736739328; Email address: GWC-SE46736739328@greenwinnetwork.com.

Personal URL: http://GreenWinNetwork.com/GWCALI_/46736739328

When finishing of a registration a personal URL link will be sent to user a phone number and email address. See Fig. 3 for the account window. When registered, a registered user becomes a GWC User and receives a personal URL link by email and SMS. To deploy and install an application a cellular phone user should click on the link in SMS from his/her cellular phone.

The registration of a user is schematically depicted in Fig. 4, and Fig. 5 shows a window where the registration is agreed to.

Furthermore, an Internet connection is available to perform application downloading. By clicking on a downloading link web page with instructions about how to download and installation is opened, and downloading is automatically launched. After installation two icons appear in the applications menu:

A GWC Portal application to access call establishing features for users passes through an authentication procedure. When a user launches a GWC Portal or GWC Sync application, his authentication is performed based on his/her personal URL link and his/here password (pin code) specified during the registration procedure. After launching of the GWC Portal or GWC Sync applications, a user is asked to input the password. When a correct password has been entered an access to other features of the applications become available.

A GWC user can synchronize contacts from his/her phone's address book with his/her GWC account's address book on the server. To do this a user should launch the GWC Sync application by selecting a GWC Sync icon in the Application Menu.

When log in to the GWC system is accomplished, a GWC Sync application checks the availability of an Internet connection and the possibility to access the GWC

Gateway server. In a case where the GWC Gateway server is not reachable, the application informs a user that a connection cannot be established. Thereafter, the application closes.

After checking the connection to the GWC Gateway server the GWC Sync application informs the user that his/her contacts will be synchronized with his/her GWC account. The user confirms that he/she agrees to synchronize contacts from his/her address book with the GWC account address book. When this is accomplished, the GWC sync application informs the user that synchronization has started. It can take several minutes depending on the amount of contacts to be synchronized.

As the launching of the GWC Portal application is accomplished and successfully has passed the login procedure a user is able to view, navigate and select through contacts uploaded to the server during the contacts synchronization procedure. Thus, a user is able to search for particular contacts by contact names. To simplify navigation through a big amount of contacts, they should for instance be grouped based on a first letter of a contact name. See Fig. 6.

A user of a GWC Portal is able to view the call history. A call history includes out coming, incoming calls and missed calls. Hereby, a call history stores a limited amount of records. See Fig. 7. When making calls a user launches the GWC Portal application.

Depending on the selected technology a GWC Portal can be implemented as a HTML page or as a standalone application in the cellular phone.

During a successful login procedure, utilizing a GWC Portal main screen a user can specify a destination phone number manually or select it from a contacts list. A Contact list contains user's contacts only if the user has made a contact synchronization utilizing the GWC Sync application. In order to make a fee free call a user is on-line, i.e. the phone should have an Internet connection and a call recipient should also be online. The GWC portal application automatically checks the user and receiver on-line status and

allows/disables a free call feature correspondently.

When in utilization a user interface possibility to make a free call is shown by the color of a free call icon. If a free call is available for a current recipient and the user is online, the icon has a green color. If the user is off-line or the recipient is off-line the icon has for instance a grey color. A check of an online status is performed after selection of a recipient in the contact list, after a manual entering of 10 digits of the SIP number without the initial "+" symbol, a mandatory character of a regular number is shown. When pushing the free call button a SIP call GWC portal initiates a procedure of call establishing.

A GWC User receives a SIP call using currently launched and registered in the GWC SIP server VoIP software. This can be any kind of VoIP phones, softphones, SIP clients on user's cellular phones, computer with VoIP capability and the like.

During a call the user launches the GWC Portal application. Depending on the selected technology, the GWC Portal can be implemented as an HTML page or as a standalone application on a cellular phone. After utilization of a successful login procedure, see GWC Portal main screen, a user can specify a destination phone number manually or select it from the contact list. The contact list contains a user's contacts only if the user made a contact synchronization utilizing the GWC Sync application. In case if a user is off-line or a recipient is off-line and having a regular phone number, or if the recipient has a regular phone, a number user can make a sure call. A sure call service is payable and a user should receive notification about this each time he/she requests this service. In order to make a sure call, the user is provided a "Sure call" icon on the user interface. After selection of a sure call utilization, the user is notified about the request of a payable service by a message.This call will have a small charge with a possibility to cancel the request. A Call establishing procedure is implemented through the GWC Gateway server. The general sequence of actions for a call establishing is shown in Fig. 6. In dependence of the user's on-line status, the GWC portal makes a request for a call establishing in different manners. If a user is on-line when a request for a call establishing, it is placed through an HTTP protocol. In the case if a user is off-line, a call establishing request is placed through SMS sent to a special system phone number.

A user of a GWC Portal should be able to view the call history. A call history includes out coming, incoming calls and missed calls. Hereby, a call history stores a limited amount of records. See Fig. 7. When making calls a user launches the GWC Portal application. Depending on the selected technology a GWC Portal can be implemented as a HTML page or as a standalone application in the cellular phone.

An important feature of establishing a call in a GWC system is that from a users perspective all calls are incoming and a user should accept an incoming call to proceed. If the user is in an off-line mode a call establishing has an additional special step described in Fig. 8. Fig. 8 illustrates a GWC user utilization case.

In Fig. 9 is illustrated a call establishing procedure, which is implemented on the GWC Gateway server. Here a General sequence of actions supposed for call establishing is depicted.

Fig. 10 illustrates a user in an off-line mode, whereby call establishing has an additional step.

The implementation of a SIP protocol partly or in full scope in a browser utilizing HTML and JavaScript possibilities can be accomplished only in the scope of the HTML5 format, because only WebSockets JavaScript class, introduced in HTML5 allows two directional audio streaming, so called full duplex, required for receiving or imitating SIP calls. Currently, the HTML5 standard is supported only on browsers of IPhone ® and Android based cellular phones. Symbian based phone browsers do not support the HTML5 standard including native browsers and Opera ® mini and Opera ® Mobile browsers. There are no plans for providing such a support in the near future to be available in the Internet. By those circumstances two possible solutions are proposed:

Use as target platforms IPhone ® and Android phones and implement the SIP protocol features using the possibilities of the HTML5 standard.

Select a limited set of Nokia devices to implement the SIP protocol features on

C++.

Utilize an embedded Nokia SIP client for establishing and receiving SIP calls, which requires additional user actions to select SIP settings as default and to establish calls.

Intercepting incoming calls, canceling calls, getting a source VoIP break-in number requires a deep integration with phone features. Thus, the implementation of this approach can be accomplished only on cellular phones, not through browsers and it can't be accomplished in a portable manner. There are two options for this case:

Make phone specific implementations for limited set of devices.

Do not call the interception feature at the current stage.

Note that the implementation of a call interception feature also requires implementation of a correspondent behavior on the CMVOIP.

To display user call history correspondent information, this should be provided by a CMVOIP system. The standard features of the SIP protocol do not allow to provide such information, thus an additional implementation on the Challenger Mobile side is also needed.

According to requirements for performing operations in an off-line mode, a special page is saved in the phone memory and the browser automatically switches between on-line and off-line versions of a page. It is possible to implement a HTML page, which will be stored in the phone's memory, and work without an Internet connection. But browsers can't automatically switch between remote and local HTML pages depending on the internet connection status. The following solutions are available for supporting on-line and off-line modes:

When utilizing two different pages, one in the web for an on-line mode and one on the phone for an off-line mode, a user manually launches an off-line mode page as soon as a connection to the Internet is lost. Also, a user needs a manually launch on-line version of the page as soon as a connection is restored.

Implementing of a GWC Portal as a standalone application on the cellular phone, which is not dependent on an on-line status, the GWC user account in a Challenger Mobile VoIP (CMVOIP) system can be created by a GWC AutoTrans program.

A free of fees call feature depends not only on the on-line status of the recipient but also on the on-line status of the user. In terms of SIP communications an on-line status does not mean a connection to the GWC Gateway server, but registration on the SIP domain server. The GWC portal system can fully control user on-line status in the case if the GWC Portal user interface and SIP client are fully integrated with each other. This is possible in the following cases:

GWC portal and SIP client are implemented as Web pages. Such an approach is possible only with utilization of the HTML5 standard, and can be implemented for iPhone ® and Android based phones.

GWC portal and SIP client are implemented as standalone applications in cellular phones.

In other cases it is hard to guaranty correctness of non-line status detection. Moreover, GWC users are able to send a message with an affiliate link to all contacts from the users address book, which not are members of the GWC feature. An affiliation link is provided by the back-office. A user should be able to edit messages before sending them. The Green Win back-office is responsible for a user registration and management. The back-office provides user information required to create a user account in the GWC Gateway and CMVOIP systems.

Fig. 11 illustrates an Iphone ® with applets to apply some of the tasks achieved by the GWC concept.

The present invention is not meant to be restricted to embodiments and examples given. Thus, the attached claims provide further possible embodiments to a person skilled in the art.

Claims

Claims:

1. A system adapted to media means assisting a person making telephone calls through a telephone signal connection (18) during calling up comprising:

telephone (10, 14) and network (16) signal connections (18, 20, 22, 24) utilized to establish communication between at least one of a caller and a receiver in said system;

a caller telephone device (10) having at least its telephone identity credentials stored through a server (12) in connection to a portal in said server;

said caller telephone device (10) being provided an applet to be stored in said telephone (10) which connects said telephone device through said signal connections (22, 24) to said portal residing in said server (12), which provides said media means via said applet when calling up a party having said media means to deliver;

a receiver means with telephone capabilities (14) at the called party having at least its telephone identity credentials stored in said server (12) and in connection to said portal through said signal connections (20, 24) and said media means being provided a caller telephone device (10) during an actual call session; and

a screen connected to said callers telephone device, displaying said media means on said screen through said applet.

2. A system according to claim 1 , wherein said media means is a menu prompting said caller to choose a provided service.

3. A system according to claim 1 , wherein said caller also has his/her media means stored in said server (12).