HK1178002A - Automated session admission - Google Patents

Description

Automated session licensing

Cross Reference to Related Applications

This application is filed on 9/1/2004 as serial No. 10/931,857, a continuation of the application entitled automatic control delivery and is related to U.S. application serial No. 10/784,864 filed on 23/2/2004 as serial No. 10/784,864, entitled PROVIDING addition INFORMATION WITH SESSION REQUESTS and U.S. application serial No. 10/784,865 filed on 23/2/2004 as serial No. 1/2, and entitled USING addition INFORMATION provision IN SESSION REQUESTS, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference IN their entirety.

Technical Field

The present invention relates to communications and in particular to providing permission information in a session request that a remote communication device or application can use to determine whether to establish a requested session to facilitate basic communications or multiparty conferencing.

Background

Various types of communication sessions, including voice or message based communication sessions, are established as two or more parties wish to communicate about a particular topic. The session may be a regular session between two parties or a conference between three or more parties. For conference settings, it is common to require the participants to manually enter permission information (including access codes, passwords, or other types of identifying information) before providing access to the conference. In addition, some two-party sessions will benefit from requiring the initiator to provide permission information before the session is established. Unfortunately, manually providing licensing information is cumbersome and requires multiple parties to keep track of the information. There is thus a need for a way to automate the entry of permission information associated with establishing a session for a two-party session or conference session.

Disclosure of Invention

The present invention allows a first communication client initiating a communication session to include permission information in a session request used to establish the communication session in a regular call or conference scenario. The session request is intended to trigger a communication session between a first communication client and another communication client associated with a telephony endpoint or a conferencing system having the communication client. The receiving communication client will use the permission information provided in the session request to determine whether to authorize the session. If authorized, the receiving communication client will establish the communication session or allow the communication session to be established as the situation dictates.

The permission token may include any type or combination of information used to help determine whether to allow a session to be established. For example, the licensing information may include authentication information, identification information, a password, a conference access code, a conference identification code, and the like. The session need not be a voice session but could be an instant messaging session, a video conferencing session involving voice, or the like.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate the scope of the present invention and realize additional aspects thereof after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments in association with the accompanying drawing figures.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings incorporated in and forming a part of the specification illustrate several aspects of the present invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram representation of a communication environment according to one embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a communication flow diagram according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 3 is a communication flow diagram according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 4 is a communication flow diagram according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 5 is a block diagram representation of a communication client according to one embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 6 is a block diagram representation of a media application server according to one embodiment of the invention.

Detailed Description

The embodiments set forth below represent the necessary information to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention and illustrate the best mode of practicing the invention. Upon reading the following description in light of the accompanying drawing figures, those skilled in the art will understand the concepts of the invention and will recognize applications of these concepts not particularly addressed herein. It should be understood that these concepts and applications fall within the scope of the disclosure and the accompanying drawings.

The invention allows a first communication client to include permission information in a session request to establish a communication session in a regular call or conference scenario. The session request is intended to trigger a communication session between the first communication client and another communication client associated with the telephony endpoint or the conferencing system. The receiving communication client will use the permission information provided in the session request to determine whether to authorize the session. If authorized, the receiving communication client will establish the communication session or allow the communication session to be established as the situation dictates.

The permission token may include any type or combination of information used to help determine whether to allow a session to be established. For example, the licensing information may include authentication information, identification information, a password, a conference access code, a conference identification code, and the like. In addition, the session need not be a voice session but may be an instant messaging session, a video conferencing session that includes voice, or the like.

Before studying an exemplary communication flow for delivering license information and instructions in a session request, an overview of an exemplary communication environment according to one embodiment of the present invention is provided. Referring to fig. 1, an exemplary communication environment 10 is illustrated in which communication clients 12 may communicate with each other and establish sessions for communication over a packet network 14. The session may be established using any type of session establishment protocol, such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). The communication client 12 may be implemented in various types of communication devices, such as a personal computer, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a telephone, etc., that act as telephony endpoints and may be associated with one or more applications 16 that reside on the communication client 12 or are otherwise closely associated with the communication client 12. Other applications 18 may be accessed by the communication client 12 via the packet network 14. These remote applications 18 may provide applications similar to or different from the associated application 16.

The communication server 20 may be used to facilitate the establishment of sessions between respective communication clients 12 in accordance with a communication protocol. These communication sessions 20 may act as proxies (such as SIP proxies) and play an important role in any necessary signaling or handshaking between the communication clients 12 prior to establishing a communication session. Typically, but not necessarily, a communication session is established directly between communication clients 12 even when session control signaling may involve the communication server 20. In addition, one or more media application servers 22 may be provided to facilitate the establishment of various types of media sessions, such as voice, audio, and video sessions and associated conferences, at the communication client 12, as well as with third party communication clients (not shown). Notably, the media application server 22 may include communication clients through which sessions may be established and the ability to bridge (bridge) various sessions to support conferences.

For purposes of illustration, the dashed lines divide communication environment 10 into two sides. Those entities on the left side of the dashed line will generally be modified by the term "transmit" and those entities on the right side of the dashed line will be modified by the term "receive". The use of the terms "send" and "receive" is merely intended to help clarify whether a device is associated with a communication client 12 that sends or receives a session request for the illustrated embodiment. Thus, the sending communication client 12 will send a session request to the receiving communication client 12 to initiate a communication session between the sending and receiving communication clients 12.

In general, the sending associated application 16 and the sending remote application 18 will provide the permission information to the sending communication client 12, and the sending communication client 12 will send a session request including the permission information to the receiving communication client 12. In addition to establishing a session with the sending communication client 12, the receiving communication client 12 will process the licensing information and interact with the receiving associated application 16 or the receiving remote application 18 to take appropriate action based on the licensing information or instructions provided in the licensing information. As noted above, the receiving communication client 12 may also interact with the receiving media application server 22 as needed to support actions involving various types of media-related functions. As will be discussed below, the session request may be directed to the media application server 22, which media application server 22 will assist in establishing the conference between the multiple sessions and in fact provide bridging for the multiple sessions.

When messages relating to a session are sent between sending and receiving communication clients 12, the respective sending and receiving communication servers 20 may be used to route the messages. For example, a session request in the form of a SIP Invite message may be sent from the sending communication client 12 to the sending communication server 20, the sending communication secondary server 22 will forward the SIP Invite message to the receiving communication server 20, and the receiving communication server 20 will in turn forward the SIP Invite message to the receiving communication client 12. For subsequent communication flow diagrams, the routing of session requests through the communication server 20 is not illustrated for brevity and readability. Those skilled in the art will recognize that various types of communication protocols may or may not require that such session-related messages be routed through the respective communication server 20 and that the particular routing of such messages is not necessary to the concepts of the present invention.

Referring now to fig. 2, an exemplary communication flow is provided in which the permission information is provided in a session request directed to the receiving communication client 12 and intended to establish a session between the sending and receiving communication clients. The license information will be automatically extracted and processed by the receiving communication client 12 to determine whether the session should be authorized. Initially, the sending association or remote application 16, 18 will generate permission information for an upcoming session between the sending and receiving communication clients 12 (step 100). The sending communication client 12 is provided with the permission information (step 102) and the sending communication client 12 will initiate a session by sending a session request including the permission information (step 106) towards the receiving communication client 12 (step 104).

Upon receiving the session request, the receiving communication client 12 will process the session request (step 108), retrieve the permission information from the session request (step 110), and process the permission information (step 112). The receiving communication client 12 will use the license information to determine whether to authorize the requested session based on some criteria that requires appropriate license information (step 114). Assuming the session is authorized, the receiving communication client 12 will send a session response back to the sending communication client 12 (step 116), and the sending communication client 12 will establish a communication session between the sending and receiving communication clients 12 (step 118).

Referring now to fig. 3, an exemplary communication flow for establishing a session associated with a conference is provided. The media application server 22 is used to control the session and will process the permissions information to determine whether to allow the session to continue or otherwise participate in the conference. In this embodiment, the participating communication clients 12 facilitate the actual conference. As before, the permission information is provided in the session request.

Initially, the sending association or remote application 16, 18 will generate permission information for the upcoming session associated with the conference (step 200). The sending communication client 12 is provided with the permission information (step 202) and the sending communication client 12 will initiate the session by sending a session request including the permission information (step 206) towards the media application server 22 associated with the session, which may be associated with the receiving communication client 12 (step 204).

Upon receiving the session request, the media application server 22 will process the session request (step 208), retrieve the license information from the session request (step 210), and process the license information. The media application server 22 will use the permission information to determine whether to allow entry into the conference (step 212). If the conference is authorized, the media application server will send a session request to any receiving communication clients 12 (step 214), and these receiving communication clients 12 will respond by sending a session response to the media application server 22 (step 216). The media application server 22 will then send a session response back to the sending communication client (step 218) where a session is established between the sending communication client 12 and any receiving communication clients 12 as needed to effect the conference (step 220). One or more of the participating communication clients 12 will implement the requisite bridging and multicasting functionality to allow each participant to hear each other in a conventional manner.

Referring now to fig. 4, another exemplary communication flow for establishing a session associated with a conference is provided. The media application server 22 is again used to control the conference and will process the permission information to determine whether to allow the session to join the conference. In this embodiment, the media application server 22 will act as an endpoint for the session with each participating communication client and provide a bridging function for each session. The permission information is provided in the session request.

Initially, the sending association or remote application 16, 18 will generate permission information for the upcoming session associated with the conference (step 300). The sending communication client 12 is provided with the permission information (step 302) and the sending communication client 12 will initiate the session by sending a session request including the permission information (step 306) towards the media application server 22 associated with the session, which may be associated with the receiving communication client 12 (step 304).

Upon receiving the session request, media application server 22 will process the session request (step 308), retrieve the license information from the session request (step 310), and process the license information (step 312). The media application server 22 will use the permission information to determine whether to allow access to the conference. If the conference is authorized, the media application server 22 will also send a session response back to the sending communication client 12 (step 314).

The media application server 22 may process other upcoming session requests for the conference from other communication clients 12. In one embodiment, the media application server 22 may be capable of initiating a session with a participating communication client. As shown, the media application server 22 may send a session request to any receiving communication clients 12 (step 316), and these receiving communication clients 12 will respond by sending a session response to the media application server (step 318). At this point, a session is established with the media application server 22 and each of the participating communication clients 12, including the sending communication client 12 and any receiving communication clients 12 (steps 320 and 322). The session is bridged by the bridging function (step 324).

In addition to controlling the permission for a session for a regular or conferencing environment, the present invention may also allow the sending communication client 12 to send a session request to initiate a session with the receiving communication client 12 (or media application server 22), where the session request includes additional information configured to allow the receiving communication client 12 to take actions associated with the communication session. The action may be initiated before, during or after the session is established. Additionally, the action may occur at any time. The additional information may include contextual information that may identify associations relating to the subject matter of the session, or specific instructions or requests to take actions associated with the communication session.

In one embodiment, the additional information identification may take many forms of persona, information, or thing association. The associations relate to the actions to be taken. Although not included, the actions to be taken may include providing information to the user, displaying information to the user, recording at least a portion of the communication session, storing information related to the communication session, initiating other sessions with other communication devices, limiting incoming session requests to those related to existing communication sessions, obtaining information from participants in the session, providing information to participants in the session, accessing a web site, initiating an email, calling or instant message, and so forth. Additional information may thus be provided in the session request to cause the communication client 12 or the media application server 22 receiving the session request to establish the session and take additional actions related to the session or the subject matter to be set forth in the session.

The licensing information may be used to identify interested parties, present relevant information and documents to participants, or trigger relevant communication events. The action taken need not be immediate. For example, the receiving communication client 12 may identify the permission information as allowing an additional party associated with the permission information to join the session. Thus, when session requests arrive from parties having a relationship to the licensing information, the receiving communication client 12 may identify these participants and allow them to join the session with the original participant. The additional information may identify the actual context or provide a pointer to the actual context. In a SIP embodiment, the SIP Invite message will include one or more fields in which permissions or additional information is provided. The receiving communication client 12 will review the session request to determine if this field is populated with permissions or additional information.

Referring to fig. 5, an exemplary communication client 12 is illustrated. The communication client 12 may include a control system 24 associated with a memory 26, the memory 26 having sufficient software 28 to provide the functionality described above. In particular, the software 28 may include a communication client function 30 and one or more associated applications 16. The control system 24 is also associated with an appropriate communication interface 32 to facilitate the session and any necessary signaling over the packet network 14. Additionally, the communication client 12 may include a user interface 34 through which user input is received and information may be displayed to the user. The communication interface 32 and the user interface 34 will vary depending on the nature of the communication client 12.

Referring to fig. 6, an exemplary application media server 22 is illustrated. Application media server 22 may include a control system 36 associated with a memory 38, the memory 38 having sufficient software 40 to provide the functionality described above. In particular, the software 40 may include a conference control function 42, which may include a bridging function. Control system 36 is also associated with an appropriate communication interface 44 to facilitate the session and any necessary signaling over packet network 14.

Those skilled in the art will recognize improvements and modifications to the preferred embodiments of the present invention. All such improvements and modifications are considered within the scope of the concepts disclosed herein and the claims that follow.

Claims (50)

1. A method, comprising:

a) determining to initiate a communication session with a communication client;

b) providing permission information configured to authorize establishment of the communication session;

c) creating a session request including the license information; and is

d) Sending the session request towards the communication client over a communication network.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the permission information is used by the communication client to determine whether to establish the communication session.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the permission information is used to determine whether to establish the communication session associated with a conference.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the communication session is one of a plurality of sessions associated with the conference.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the communication client is a media application server providing a bridging function adapted to bridge the plurality of sessions associated with the conference.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the session request is received by a media application server that cooperates with the communication client to control access to the session.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the communication client is separate from the media application server.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the licensing information comprises authentication information.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the license information includes identification information.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the permission information comprises a password.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the permission information comprises a conference access code.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the licensing information comprises a meeting identification code.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing action information configured to allow the communication client to take an action associated with the communication session, wherein the session request is created to include the action information.

14. A system, comprising:

a) a communication interface; and

b) a control system associated with the communication interface and adapted to:

i) determining to initiate a communication session with a communication client;

ii) providing permission information configured to authorize establishment of the communication session;

iii) creating a session request including the license information; and is

iv) sending the session request towards the communication client over a communication network.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the permission information is used by the communication client to determine whether to establish the communication session.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the permission information is used to determine whether to establish the communication session associated with a conference.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the communication session is one of a plurality of sessions associated with the conference.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the communication client is a media application server providing a bridging function adapted to bridge the plurality of sessions associated with the conference.

19. The system of claim 14, wherein the session request is received by a media application server that cooperates with the communication client to control access to the session.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the communication client is separate from the media application server.

21. The system of claim 14, wherein the licensing information comprises authentication information.

22. The system of claim 14, wherein the licensing information includes identification information.

23. The system of claim 14, wherein the permission information comprises a password.

24. The system of claim 14, wherein the permission information comprises a conference access code.

25. The system of claim 14, wherein the licensing information comprises a meeting identification code.

26. The system of claim 14, further comprising providing action information configured to allow the communication client to take an action associated with the communication session, wherein the session request is created to include the action information.

27. A method, comprising:

a) receiving a session request including permission information configured to authorize establishment of a communication session, the session request originating from a first communication client;

b) determining whether to authorize the communication session based on the permission information; and is

c) Enabling establishment of the communication session with the first communication client in response to the session request if the communication session is authorized.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein enabling establishment of the communication session comprises sending a response to the first communication client and facilitating communication with the first communication client.

29. The method of claim 27, wherein enabling establishment of the communication session comprises instructing the first client to establish the communication session between the first communication client and a second communication client.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein the communication session is part of a conference with a plurality of communication clients.

31. The method of claim 31, wherein at least one of the plurality of communication clients supports the conference.

32. The method of claim 27, wherein enabling establishment of the communication session comprises sending a response to the first communication client to establish the communication session, and further comprising establishing additional communication sessions with a plurality of communication clients and bridging the communication sessions to facilitate a conference.

33. The method of claim 27, wherein the licensing information comprises authentication information.

34. The method of claim 27, wherein the license information includes identification information.

35. The method of claim 27, wherein the permission information comprises a password.

36. The method of claim 27, wherein the permission information comprises a conference access code.

37. The method of claim 27, wherein the licensing information comprises a meeting identification code.

38. The method of claim 27, wherein action information is included in the session request, and further comprising taking an action associated with the communication session.

39. A system, comprising:

a) a communication interface; and

b) a control system associated with the communication interface and adapted to:

i) receiving a session request including permission information configured to authorize establishment of a communication session, the session request originating from a first communication client;

ii) determining whether to authorize the communication session based on the permission information; and is

iii) if the communication session is authorized, enabling establishment of the communication session with the first communication client in response to the session request.

40. The system of claim 39, wherein to enable establishment of the communication session, the control system is further adapted to send a response to the first communication client and facilitate communication with the first communication client.

41. The system of claim 39, wherein to enable establishment of the communication session, the control system is further adapted to instruct the first client to establish the communication session between the first communication client and a second communication client.

42. The system of claim 41, wherein the communication session is part of a conference with a plurality of communication clients.

43. The system of claim 42, wherein at least one of the plurality of communication clients supports the conference.

44. The system of claim 39, wherein to enable establishment of the communication session, the control system is further adapted to send a response to the first communication client to establish the communication session, the control system is further adapted to establish additional communication sessions with a plurality of communication clients and to bridge the communication sessions to facilitate a conference.

45. The system of claim 39, wherein the licensing information includes authentication information.

46. The system of claim 39, wherein the licensing information includes identification information.

47. The system of claim 39, wherein the permission information comprises a password.

48. The system of claim 39, wherein the permission information comprises a conference access code.

49. The system of claim 39, wherein the licensing information includes a meeting identification code.

50. The system of claim 39, wherein action information is included in the permission request and the control system is further adapted to take an action associated with the communication session.