Personal web-based teleconferencing method and system
Contents
1. The present invention addresses the deficiencies of known systems 1 which do not provide user controlled dialing 2 which do not display the status of participants 3 which require reservations to be made in advance and 4 which require operator intervention to establish a teleconference The present invention utilizes a graphical user interface to identify potential participants in a teleconference specify a user controlled dial up hang up order and monitor the sta tus of participants to the teleconference The method and system receive conference commands from a World Wide 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 2 Web WWW browser and translate the conference com mands into commands that control a telephone bridge The best presently known mode of implementing the present invention is with a specially programmed general purpose microprocessor programmed using microprocessor specific executable instructions and which communicates with a telephone bridge The instructions are generated by compil ing a high level computer language program assembling a low level computer program and linking the two to produce an executable program The executable program implements the method and system and the executable instructions are written into a computer memory readable by the general purpose microprocessor BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS These and other aspects of the present invention will become clear2. at the WWW server when a conference is requested and utilizes the cookies as part of the commu nication between the WWW browser and WWW server Other methods of saving state can also be used depending on the capabilities of the WWW browser that the user is using Hidden fields in forms can be used to identify a teleconference or additional parameters can be used to 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 4 create an augmented URL which identifies the conference The use of cookies will be explained in more detail below After the WWW browser connects to the WWW server the WWW browser is sent a series of text and HyperText Markup Language HTML commands from the WWW server The WWW browser interprets the HTML commands and renders the text as a screen or a form One such form is shown in FIG 2 FIG 2 illustrates that multiple names and phone numbers can be entered into the form to identify the potential participants of the teleconference This information and the remaining information and Web pages are transmit ted between the WWW server and the WWW browser securely to ensure that others cannot detect credit card numbers or information about the phone calls Although the screen is shown as having slots for six participants more or fewer entries can be provided depending upon the capabili ties of the bridge or constraints established by the service provider For users unfamiliar with the operation o
3. a bridge which will join or bridge calls from each participating caller with each of the other callers Examples of known bridges are 1 the LNX 2000 by Excel and 2 the SDS 500 by Summa Four Inc At the reserved time callers dial into a centralized telephone number typically an 800 number and are added to the conference based on their calling telephone number the participants name a conference identification or other suit able identifying means The system however has the dis advantages of 1 using reservations made in advance which prevent spontaneous teleconferences and 2 not always indicating who is present on the teleconference at any given time Known dial out or dial up conference systems such as those disclosed in Yunoki U S Pat No 5 408 518 and Hogan et al U S Pat No 5 483 587 use reservations made in advance and operate similarly to the dial in conference However in dial out conferences the bridge uses the infor mation in the reservation made in advance to call the participants individually As each new participant accepts the invitation to join the bridge connects the new participant with any other participants thereby forming the teleconfer ence Disadvantages of this type of dial out system are that 1 the conference initiator does not have control of the order of dialing or the removal of unwanted parties and 2 a reservation has to be made in advance to use the system SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
4. the user selects an invalid number the WWW server will respond by sending status information and an icon to the user to indicate that the phone number is invalid An example icon indicating an invalid phone number is shown in FIG 5 Another possible error condition that can occur is that there are no additional outbound lines with which the bridge can call participants If this happens when a user has selected a number to be dialed the WWW server sends the status information and the icon for this condition back to the WW browser An exemplary icon for this condition also is shown in FIG 5 Even with correct numbers entered for the participants it is also possible that the teleconference as initially configured will not meet the user s needs If the user wants to add a new participant that he she had not originally thought of the user 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 6 selects the Change Participants button In response the WWW server will send back and the WWW browser will re display the Teleconference Setup screen complete with all the existing numbers but the Begin Conference button is replaced with a Return to Conference button The user can then change any of the information for participants that are on hook The additions changes are submitted to the WWW server by selecting the Return to Conference button and the Teleconference Control screen is redisplayed based on the n
5. to those skilled in the art in view of the description of the best presently known mode of carrying out the invention and the industrial applicability of the preferred embodiment as described herein and as illustrated in the several figures of the drawings FIG 1 is a schematic illustration of a general purpose computer for controlling a telephone bridge according to the present invention FIG 2 is a partial illustration of an exemplary computer form which is filled out during conference registration FIG 3 is a partial illustration of an exemplary computer form which is filled out during conference registration to provide billing information for a teleconference FIG 4 is a partial illustration of an exemplary computer screen which acts as a control interface for controlling the operation of a teleconference FIG 5 is an illustration of exemplary computer icons which indicate the status of teleconference participants FIG 6 is a partial illustration of an exemplary computer form which details the charges incurred during a telecon ference which requires a 5 00 minimum charge FIG 7 is a partial illustration of an exemplary computer form which allows problems with the teleconference to be reported during a post teleconference wrap up FIG 8 is a schematic illustration of a general purpose computer system connected to a telephone bridge for con trolling teleconferences and FIG 9 is a schematic illustration of compone
6. was credit card obtained ZipCode US Credit Cards Only Email Submit LLG 3 Clear Entries Teleconference Conttrol S p e P 19085551234 19085552345 19085553456 Persona Person3 Me at eee dm Change Participants End Conference U S Patent May 13 2003 Sheet 3 of 5 US 6 563 914 B2 What the phone icons mean E is ONHOOK fal Line is DIALING e E is OFFHOOK me i phone number e E outbound line available ay LIG 5S Time and Charges for Your Conference Call Phone Number Duration min Charge US Dollars 19085551234 1 1 5 150 19085552345 1 aa 30 Subtotal 5 00 min 5 00 Tees 0 00 UE 6 TPS Call Sciences regrets that you had trouble using our Personal Teleconferencing system In order for us to credit your account please indicate the type of trouble you experienced by checking the appropriate boxes next to each phone call When finished click the Submit button Phone Number Noise on the line Disconnected Other 1905551234 o H Jg 19085552345 LH HU JE FIG 7 U S Patent May 13 2003 Sheet 4 of 5 US 6 563 914 B2 200 210 TELEPHONE LINES BRIDGE COMPUTER 203 TO EXTERNAL NETWORK FIC 8 US 6 563 914 B2 Sheet 5 of 5 May 13 2003 U S Patent 6 OLA YOLINON 3NO HIAWSY 99 JUVWOIV ELE I NOISS3S SJlVOdfi SNIVIS 0002 XN1 130X3 7904 ONI
7. 50 55 65 8 the bridge 200 were another computer on a network However the bridge 200 can also be connected by a serial line hung off of the computer running the switch controller 350 or any other of the communication adapters described above In a second embodiment of the present invention the processes 300 310 and 350 are run on a single computer 100 and there is no need for PSM Gateway 320 because all communication goes directly to the PSM In a third embodi ment of the present invention the PSM is run on a second computer or integrated into the bridge 200 In both embodiments the bridge 200 receives commands including status requests based on a bridge specific command proto col One example of a communications message which is part of a communications protocol is listed below in Table I Table I shows the appropriate byte sequence for command ing the bridge to perform a requested action and Table II shows the actual byte values of the command sequence For commands with replies Table III shows the byte values of a reply from the bridge 200 The structure of these replies have been taken from the LNX 2000 User s Manual Excel Part Number 08 2003 02 incorporated herein by reference The values of the replies are stored in the storage device 320 e g hard disk flash memory RAM TABLE I Format of Byte Sequence Field Byte Description Frame Indicator 0 Always O x FE Length NN 1 Length of bytes to follow not inc
8. ONSUINOD S3It3n0 SALVIS SQNWAO au HOLIMS Gf 4aSMOUG 03NI TaN uvdS JuvdS NITIOMINOD HOIIMS YAYIS IM YMOMIAN US 6 563 914 B2 1 PERSONAL WEB BASED TELECONFERENCING METHOD AND SYSTEM BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1 Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and system for establishing teleconferences More specifically the present invention relates to a new and improved method of estab lishing dial out multi party teleconferences without the need for human operator support or reservations made in advance 2 Description of the Background Known teleconference systems are generally classified into one of two types of systems 1 dial in conferences and 2 dial out or dial up conferences however both types of systems are used for establishing teleconferences i e tele phone communications between two or more parties Stan ley et al U S Pat No 4 635 251 and Frey et al U S Pat No 4 577 065 disclose dial in conference systems Before a dial in conference is established a reservation is made in advance with an operator or automated equivalent typi cally a few days before the teleconference The reservation made in advance includes the time at which the teleconfer ence will begin and the names or phone numbers of the parties that have been invited to participate The operator reserves for the specified time a portion of a specialized telephone switch called
9. United States Patent US006563914B2 12 10 Patent No US 6 563 914 B2 Sammon et al 45 Date of Patent May 13 2003 54 PERSONAL WEB BASED 4 550 224 A 10 1985 Winchell 379 202 TELECONFERENCING METHOD AND 4 577 005 A 3 1986 Frey et al 379 204 SYSTEM 4 635 251 A 1 987 Stanley et al 370 62 4 053 090 A 3 1987 Hayden 379 204 75 Inventors Michael J Sammon Watchung NJ 4 658 416 A 4 1987 Tanaka ES 455 417 USy Wai Nam Tam Flanders NJ 4 691 347 A 9 1987 Stanley et al s j 4 796 203 A 1 1989 Blinken et al US Warren Gifford Holmdel NJ 4 797 871 A 1 1989 Pope et al US David Turock Upper Montclair 4 800 262 A 2 1989 Klose et al NJ US 4 937 856 A 6 1990 Natarajan 5 113 431 A 5 1992 Horn 2 73 Assignee Call Sciences Limited Slough GB 5 244 004 A 9 1993 Graff Jr et al 206 564 5 251 248 A 10 1993 Tokunaga et al Notice This patent issued on a continued pros 5 274 700 A 12 1993 Gechter et al ecution application filed under 37 CFR 5 329 578 A 7 994 Brennan et al 1 53 d and is subject to the twenty year ies s i ae dg et a p el 375 almer et al PEE ag provisions of 35 U S C 5392342 A 2 1995 Rosenthal a 2 5 408 518 A 4 1995 Yunoki eeeeeeeee 379 67 1 3 5 408 526 A 4 1995 McFarland et al 379 202 Subject to any disclaimer the
10. be secured by Letters Patent of the United States is 1 A computer program product comprising a computer storage medium and a computer program code mechanism embedded in the computer storage medium for causing a computer to control a telephone bridge linked to the computer the computer controlling the telephone bridge based on commands from a graphical user interface of a non operator the computer program code mechanism comprising first computer code configured to receive a message from the graphical user interface of the non operator second computer code configured to convert the mes sage into a bridge command specific to the telephone bridge third computer code configured to send the bridge command to the telephone bridge fourth computer code configured to receive a response from the telephone bridge and fifth computer code configured to send the response to the graphical user interface of the non operator wherein the fifth computer code comprises sixth computer code configured to transmit a cost per minute of a multiparty teleconference before the multiparty tele conference is established 2 The computer program product as claimed in claim 1 wherein the first computer code comprises seventh computer code configured to receive a user command as the message 3 The computer program product as claimed in claim 2 wherein the second computer code comprises eighth com puter code configured to establish a multiparty telecon
11. berCash After the card or other payment information has been entered the user selects the Submit button to send to the information to the WWW server for authorization If there are any incorrect values in the information or there are any holds on the credit card the teleconference will not be initiated and the user is asked to re enter the information or choose another method of payment If the payment method is authorized the WWW server pre authorizes a minimum charge and sends the browser the control interface such as the one shown in FIG 4 Initially all the telephone icons are shown as displayed using the icon which indicates the on hook status FIG 5 illustrates that for this interface the on hook icon is a telephone with the telephone handset resting in the cradle Typically a user will begin by connecting himself herself to the teleconfer ence first To do this the user clicks or otherwise selects the icon with the user s phone number In FIG 4 the user has selected the icon labeled Me and the bridge has called the user However this requires that the user not be using his phone line already to control the WWW browser If the user has a dial up connection a second phone line will have to be used to receive the phone call Periodically the WWW browser sends status requests to the WWW server to refresh its status information and US 6 563 914 B2 5 determine if any of the participants have changed thei
12. ceive conference commands from a World Wide U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 4 540 850 A 9 1985 Herr et al 379 88 19 4 544 804 A 10 1985 Herr et al 379 204 Web WWW browser and translate the conference com mands into commands that control a telephone bridge 24 Claims 5 Drawing Sheets US 6 563 914 B2 Page 2 U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 5 867 494 A 2 1999 Krishnaswamy et al 370 352 5 884 039 A 3 1999 Ludwig et al 395 200 57 5 559 876 A 9 1996 Alperovich 379 205 5 806 128 A 4 1999 345 327 WU MR ee pee ene ae 5 903 637 A 5 1999 Hogan et al s s s 379 203 conn cn 5 916 302 A 6 1999 Dunn et al 709 204 5 652 789 A 7 1997 Miner et al 379 201 5 936 662 A 8 1999 Kim et al 348 15 5 745 711 A 4 1998 Kitahara et al 345 330 p dics deca 5 754 636 A 5 1998 Bayless et al 379 142 5 857 189 A 1 1999 Riddle 707A0 cited by examiner U S Patent May 13 2003 Sheet 1 of 5 US 6 563 914 B2 120 S S 112 HARD DISK 3 100 U S Patent May 13 2003 Sheet 2 of 5 US 6 563 914 B2 Teleconference Setup Name Phone Number Me 0 00 min 2 0 00 min 3 0 00 min 7 7 090 min BEL 0 00 min gf 0 00 min FIG 2 Credit Card Information O Amex O Visa MasterCard Discover Card No Expiration Month Year Location USA VJWhere
13. del of average conference length and cost per minute for each participant A typical pre authorized amount for small conferences is 25 but for international or large conferences several hundred dollars may be pre authorized Also the pre authorized amount may be changed if the number of participants changes during the teleconference US 6 563 914 B2 7 especially if an international number is added The confer ence monitor 340 which tracks whether a conference soon will exceed its pre authorized amount is discussed in greater detail with reference to FIG 9 In an alternate embodiment the WWW server also sends a running total of the teleconference back to the user with each status refresh request This allows a user to better track the actual cost of a conference especially with more costly international calls To implement the present invention as shown in FIG 8 the computer 100 is connected using communications path 203 via the communications adapter to an external network preferably the Internet but additional networks such as a satellite data network or bulletin board service are also possible Communications channel 205 connects the com puter 100 and the bridge 200 to allow the computer 100 to send commands to the bridge 200 and to receive status requests from the bridge 200 The communication channel 205 can be either wired e g Token ring Ethernet ATM or wireless e g infra red Also the bridge 200 is connec
14. e user s request is acknowl edged by providing a response to the HTML request which includes an indication that the icon of Person2 should be displayed as a hand dialing the phone When Person2 answers the phone the bridge connects Person2 with any other participants in this case the user The next time the WW W browser refreshes its status information the user will be sent information indicating that Person2 has gone off hook and the display will be updated so that Person2 also has the off hook icon Additional participants that were set up during the call initiation phase and that have icons can be called in a manner similar to the manner shown above for calling Person2 In addition if the user wishes to disconnect a participant from the conference call the user can select an off hook icon to send the WWW server a hang up request The WWW server will send the bridge a command to remove the selected participant from the conference Communication between the WWW server and the bridge is discussed in more detail below Also it is possible that at the end of a conference the user wishes to disconnect all participants simultaneously To do so the user selects the End Conference button and the WWW server receives the request which is translated into a bridge command to stop the teleconference It is also possible that during the teleconference the user determines that a number entered for a participant is incor rect If
15. eadable media further includes the computer program product of the present invention for real time control of teleconferences via requests received from users at remote sites To provide the teleconference service the present inven tion utilizes a WWW server which listens for connection requests on a specified TCP IP ports e g port 80 for HTTP and port 443 for HTTPS When a user wishes to establish a teleconference with other potential participants the user connects to the WWW server using a conventional WWW browser such as Netscape Navigator by Netscape Commu nications or Internet Explorer by Microsoft Corporation and specifies the URL which identifies the request as a telecon ference initiation request An exemplary URL Universal Resource Locator which would identify the request as a teleconference initiation request is http www tpsinc com ptc where http specifies that the request should be made using the HyperText Transfer Protocol www tpsinc com indi cates the name of the machine on which the WWW server resides and ptc indicates the local resource on the WWW server to be retrieved It is preferable that the WWW browser support forms as defined by the HTML 2 0 standard and by the proposals for HTML 2 04 and HTML 3 0 This allows information to be gathered more compactly than can be gathered with a WWW browser that does not support forms In addition the preferred embodiment gen erates cookies
16. ention provide alternate responses to what happens when the pre authorized limit is exceeded In the first embodiment the teleconfer ence is simply cut off when the pre authorized limit has been exceeded In the second embodiment the WWW browser is updated to request that the user pre authorize an amount equal to the original pre authorized amount If this autho rization is not given then the teleconference is ended However the user may not be looking at the WWW browser at the time the call needs to be re authorized or the user may have directed his her WWW browser to look at something other than the status information In either case the user would miss the opportunity to re authorize Therefore in the third embodiment an announcement is played via the bridge requesting that the user pre authorize an amount equal to the original pre authorized amount In the third embodiment the user can confirm using DTMF tones In the fourth and preferred embodiment the user is simply informed as part of the initialization process that any additional charges will be automatically charged to his her account then the user s payment method is re authorized each time the user exceeds the existing pre authorized amount If the pre authorization ever fails the conference is terminated at the end of the pre authorized amount To avoid having to re authorize frequently the present invention pre authorizes the payment method according to a statistical mo
17. erface of the non operator wherein the step of transmitting comprises transmitting a cost per minute of a multiparty teleconference before the multiparty teleconference is established 18 The method as claimed in claim 17 wherein the first step of receiving a message comprises receiving a user command as the message 19 The method as claimed in claim 18 wherein the converting step comprises establishing a multiparty telecon ference between plural teleconferees based on the message and without a reservation made in advance 10 15 20 12 20 The method as claimed in claim 19 wherein the establishing step comprises establishing the multiparty tele conference using a connection message per teleconferee 21 The method as claimed in claim 19 further compris ing the step of disconnecting all plural teleconferees from the multiparty teleconference based on a single disconnect message 22 The method as claimed in claim 19 wherein the first step of receiving a message comprises receiving a status request as the message 23 The method as claimed in claim 20 wherein the step of transmitting the response comprises transmitting at least one of an icon and an icon identifier as part of the response to the status request such that at least one of the icon and an icon identified by the icon identifier is displayed by the graphical user interface as a status of a corresponding connection to one of the plural teleconferees 24 T
18. ew information When a teleconference is complete either when all the participants have hung up or after the user selects the End Conference button the user is provided a summary of the charges that have been incurred An exemplary form show ing the charges broken down by participant is shown in FIG 6 In FIG 6 the system is assumed to have a 5 00 minimum charge so the 1 30 total cost is actually rounded up to 5 00 During the post teleconference wrap up it is also possible to report problems with the teleconference FIG 7 shows an exemplary form for reporting problems back to the WWW server and receiving automatic credits Two problems that are displayed on the form are 1 Noise on the line and 2 Disconnected The user may indicate that either or both of the conditions occurred by selecting their corresponding check boxes If either of the conditions occur the user is given a credit to allow the user to reconnect without paying for the lost time To avoid fraud credits are not provided for more than one minute per leg of any particular call Calls that continue longer than one minute clearly have provided value to the user If the line had been truly unusable the user could have just selected hang up and restarted While a conference is proceeding it is possible to exceed the pre authorized amount originally authorized by the WWW server when the teleconference was established Four alternate embodiments of the present inv
19. f the teleconference system help can be obtained by clicking on the Help button on the form or a demonstration can be displayed by clicking on the Demo button Help and demonstration files can then be provided to the user in the form of HTML documents audio prompts or even MPEG videos In addition to dynamic demonstrations static tutorial text and images can be sent to the browser for display Also after numbers and potentially names have been entered into the form a user can select the Rate button to determine the cost per minute of the teleconference on a participant by participant basis This allows a user to esti mate the cost of a teleconference before it is started When the numbers of the participants have been entered and the user is ready to initiate a teleconference the user selects the Begin Conference button and the information in the form is submitted to the WWW server The WWW server responds by sending to the user a second form such as the one shown in FIG 3 The second form is filled in by the user to specify a method of payment for the teleconference Since credit cards are the most convenient and universally used method of electronic payment the preferred embodiment uses credit card infor mation to authorize the teleconference Other embodiments include other methods of electronic payment such as elec tronic cash transfers with a PIN or electronic payments such as those available by systems produced by Cy
20. fer ence between plural teleconferees based on the message and without a reservation made in advance 4 The computer program product as claimed in claim 1 wherein the eighth computer code comprises ninth computer 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 10 code configured to establish the multiparty teleconference using a connection message per teleconferees 5 The computer program product as claimed in claim 2 wherein the eighth computer code further comprises tenth computer code configured to disconnect all of the plural teleconferees from the multiparty teleconference based on a single disconnect message 6 The computer program product as claimed in claim 5 wherein the first computer code comprises seventh computer code configured to receive a status request the message 7 The computer program product as claimed in claim 3 wherein the fifth computer code comprises eighth computer code configured to transmit at least one of an icon and an icon identifier as part of the response to the status request such that at least one of the icon and an icon identified by the icon identifier is displayed by the graphical user interface as a status of a corresponding connection to one of the plural teleconferees 8 The computer program product as claimed in claim 3 wherein the first computer code comprises seventh computer code configured to receive a secure HTML request as the message 9 An apparatus for co
21. he method as claimed in claim 23 wherein the first step of receiving comprises receiving a secure HTML request as the message
22. infor mation received from the bridge 200 e g information such as the status of the connection of each participant and information available from other sources e g whether or not a payment method was authorized participant name and telephone information total cost of a teleconference When returning status information the CGI program reads the status information and formats the requested status infor mation as HTML The CGI program returns the HTML reply to the WWW server 300 which passes the HTML reply to the user via the external network In systems which allow the WWW server 300 to pass the open socket to a child process and to close the original socket the reply does not actually pass through the WWW server 300 but is passed directly from the CGI program 310 to the WWW browser When the user requests that the bridge perform an action on the teleconference e g end the conference dial a number disconnect a participant the URL information is sent from the CGI program 310 to the PSM Gateway 320 and the PSM Gateway 320 sends a command to a switch controller 350 that controls the bridge 200 In a first embodi ment of the present invention the switch controller 350 in FIG 9 is implemented on a separate SPARC computer and executes the Programmable Switch Matrix connected to the PSM Gateway 320 The PSM and the switch controller 350 communicate across the communication medium 205 as if 10 15 25 30 35 40 45
23. luding the checksum Function type To differentiate messages of the same type API Message Type 2 Sequence Number 3 Data 0 4 Data content of Message Type Data T Data content of Message Type Data n NN 1 Data content of Message Type Checksum NN 2 Checksum TABLE II Command Byte Values Sent to Switch 0 x FE Frame Indicator 0x 05 Message Length 0 x 4B Create Conference 0x01 Seq Number 0 x 06 Conference Size 6 0x01 Conference Type 1 u Law 2 A Law 3 mixed 0 x 00 Broadcast 0 disabled 1 enabled Ox NN Checksum TABLE III Response Byte Values From Switch 0 x FE Frame Indicator 0x 05 Message Length 0 x 4B Create Conference 0x01 Seq Number 0 x 10 Status 0 x 10 ACK anything else is error condition 0x 00 Conference ID MSB 0x01 Conference ID LSB Ox NN Checksum Throughout the processing of teleconferences the PSM Gateway 320 has potentially managed more than one tele conference simultaneously In order to distinguish between teleconferences the PSM Gateway 320 issues a cookie or WWW browser identifier to each WWW browser when each US 6 563 914 B2 9 user initiates a conference To avoid forgeries this cookie is based the date and time of the initiation as well as the process ID of the CGI process that sent the initiation document Together these parameters create a unique ID that is difficult to guess randomly After the PSM Gateway 320 has sent this cookie to the WWW browse
24. ntrolling a telephone bridge based on commands from a graphical user interface of a non operator the apparatus comprising a first receiver for receiving a message from the graphical user interface of the non operator a converter for converting the message into the bridge command specific to the telephone bridge a first transmitter for transmitting the bridge command to the telephone bridge a second receiver for receiving a response from the telephone bridge and a second transmitter for transmitting the response to the graphical user interface of the non operator wherein the second transmitter comprises a cost transmit ting unit configured to transmit a cost per minute of a multiparty teleconference before the multiparty tele conference is established 10 The apparatus as claimed in claim 9 wherein the first receiver is a receiver configured to receive a user command as the message 11 The apparatus as claimed in claim 10 wherein the converter comprises a teleconference establishing unit con figured to establish a multiparty teleconference between plural teleconferees without a reservation made in advance 12 The apparatus as claimed in claim 10 wherein the teleconference establishing unit comprises a connecting unit configured to establish the multiparty teleconference using a connection message per teleconferee 13 The apparatus as claimed in claim 12 wherein the teleconference establishing unit further comprise
25. nts used to receive requests from the WWW browser process the requests send commands to the bridge and receive status responses from the bridge DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Referring now to the drawings wherein like reference numerals designate identical or corresponding parts throughout the several views FIG 1 is a schematic illus tration of a computer system for controlling teleconferences according to the present invention A computer 100 imple ments the method of the present invention wherein the computer housing 102 houses a motherboard 104 which contains a CPU 106 and memory 108 The computer 100 also includes plural input devices e g a keyboard 122 and mouse 124 and a display card 110 for controlling monitor 120 In addition the computer system 100 further includes a floppy disk drive 114 and other removable media devices e g compact disc 119 tape and removable magneto optical media not shown a hard disk 112 or other fixed high density media drives connected using an appropriate US 6 563 914 B2 3 device bus e g a SCSI bus or an Enhanced IDE bus Although compact disc 119 is shown in a CD caddy the compact disc 119 can be inserted directly into CD ROM players which do not require caddies Also connected to the same device bus or another device bus the computer 100 may additionally include a compact disc reader writer 118 or a compact disc jukebox not shown To receive control
26. r statuses since the last check This periodic refresh is per formed by including in the HTML document the meta command to refresh the data along with a refresh interval However the WWW browser only performs the refresh while the user is displaying the HTML page or document with the refresh tag If the user selects another URL the user loses the ability to track status information Using a periodic check of the status as shown in FIG 4 the user is shown that not only has the user selected the number corresponding to the user the user has answered the phone as indicated by the off hook telephone icon After having completed the first connection from the bridge to the user the bridge will play an announcement if possible to the user indicating that the user is being invited to participate in a teleconference If the user wishes to participate the user remains on the line Some bridges are not capable of playing voice announcements to participants as they join If the bridge is not capable of playing a voice announcement to the user the user will simply hear silence until the next participant is added When the user is ready to contact the next participant the user selects the icon corresponding to the next participant to be contacted By selecting the icon a request to dial the next participant is sent from the WWW browser to the WWW server In FIG 4 the user has selected Person2 as the next participant to be added and th
27. r via the CGI program 310 the WWW browser stores the cookie inter nally and transmits the cookie back to the WWW server 300 with each new command or status request In this way the PSM Gateway 320 can maintain a table in the storage device 330 that maps control data structures to cookies thereby enabling the PSM Gateway to perform status updates to the storage device 330 on a per teleconference basis The cookie also enables the CGI program 310 to distinguish between a status request from a first browser and a status request from a second browser The cookie also allows separate billing records to be maintained and checked by conference monitor 300 Con ference monitor 340 wakes up periodically and checks the status of each line controlled by the bridge 200 For each active leg the conference monitor 340 determines the cost incurred by the leg and a total cost for the corresponding teleconference From this the conference monitor 340 cal culates whether or not a teleconference will soon exceed its pre authorized limit If so the computer monitor 340 con trols costs according to one of the four embodiments described above Obviously numerous modifications and variations of the present invention are possible in light of the above teach ings It is therefore to be understood that within the scope of the appended claims the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described herein What is claimed as new and desired to
28. requests from participants to send status information and to establish communications with other computers the com puter 100 is equipped with a communications adapter not shown which connects directly or indirectly to the Internet an Intranet or a Local Wide Area Network The communi cations adapter may be any one of the wired or wireless communication devices that can be attached to a computer including but not limited to a modem telephone or cable based an infra red transceiver an Ethernet card a Token ring card an ATM adapter an Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line a Fire wire or a universal serial bus In addition the present invention can be implemented by a set top box which provides WWW services e g WebTV In addition a printer not shown also provides printed lists of teleconference information The system further comprises at least one computer readable media Examples of such computer readable media are compact discs hard disks floppy disks tape magneto optical disks PROMS EPROMS EEPROMs Flash PROMs DRAM SRAM etc Stored on any one or on a combination of the computer readable media the present invention includes software for controlling both the hard ware of the computer 100 and for enabling the computer 100 to interact with a human user Such software may include but is not limited to device drivers operating systems and user applications such as software development tools Such computer r
29. s a discon necting unit configured to disconnect all of the plural teleconferees from the multiparty teleconference based on a single disconnect message 14 The apparatus as claimed in claim 9 wherein the first receiver is a receiver configured to receive a status request as the message 15 The apparatus as claimed in claim 14 wherein the second transmitter comprises an icon transmitter configured to transmit at least one of an icon and an icon identifier as part of the response to the status request such that at least one of the icon and an icon identified by the icon identifier is displayed by the graphical user interface as a status of a corresponding connection to one of the plural teleconferees 16 The apparatus as claimed in claim 9 wherein the first receiver is a receiver configured to receive a secure HTML request as the message US 6 563 914 B2 11 17 A computer implemented method for causing a com puter to control a telephone bridge linked to the computer the computer controlling the telephone bridge based on commands from a graphical user interface of a non operator the method comprising the steps of receiving a message from the graphical user interface of the non operator converting the message into a bridge command specific to the telephone bridge transmitting the bridge command to the telephone bridge receiving a response from the telephone bridge and transmitting the response to the graphical user int
30. ted via telephone lines 210 to the telephone network to connect to the teleconference participants In an alternate embodiment the telephone lines 210 are replaced by other known communication media either wired or wireless As shown in FIG 9 when a request is received from a browser via a network e g the Internet the request is received by a WWW server 300 e g an HTTP Daemon or an HTTPS secure HTTP Daemon running on the com puter system 100 If the request is for a static document the WWW server 300 provides the document to the browser as part of an HTML reply without having to contact any other processes If the request requires control of the switch or status information the WWW server spawns a CGI program 310 to handle the request As would be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art the CGI program 310 can be either a compiled program or an interpreted script Presently the best known mode uses Perl scripts to implement the CGI programs 310 spawned by the WWW server 300 One advantage of Perl scripts is the ability to use TCP IP sockets to communicate with other processes such as the Program mable Switch Matrix PSM Gateway 320 As shown in FIG 9 in one embodiment of the present invention depend ing on the type of request the CGI program either requests status information from a storage device 330 or issues a command to the PSM Gateway 320 Status information requested from the storage device 330 includes both
31. term of this 5 408 528 A 4 1995 Carlson et al 379 211 patent is extended or adjusted under 35 5 422 883 A 6 1995 Hauris et al 370 62 U S C 154 b by 0 days 5 475 747 A 12 1995 Bales et al s 379 201 5 483 587 A 1 1996 Hogan et al 379 202 5 495 522 A 2 1996 Allen et al 379 202 21 Appl No 08 806 986 5 517 560 A 5 1996 Greenspan ssssssseeseese 379 114 22 Filed Feb 26 1997 5 524 110 A 6 1996 Danneels et al 370 62 5 533 110 A 7 1996 Pinard et al 379 201 65 Prior Publication Data 5 544237 A 8 1996 Bales et al 379 205 US 2001 0016038 A1 Aug 23 2001 List continued on next page 51 Int CI sss H04M 1 64 HO4M 11 00 H04M 3 42 Bi ud ins i 5D USO Leen re meee 379 202 01 379 88 13 hs ie a Examiner alan H osaim pa 379 88 17 379 93 21 S00 15 bii 74 Attorney Agent or Firm Oblon Spivak McClelland 379 205 01 379 207 01 Maier amp Neustadt PC 58 Field of Search 379 201 202 57 ABSTRACT 379 203 204 205 206 131 142 245 265 67 1 88 17 88 18 88 13 93 09 93 21 A method and system which utilize a graphical user interface 100 15 158 202 01 205 01 207 01 707 10 to identify potential participants in a teleconference specify 104 345 330 332 a user controlled dial up hang up order and monitor the status of participants to the teleconference The method and 56 References Cited system re
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