Telephonic communications – With usage measurement – Call charge metering or monitoring
Reexamination Certificate
1998-07-13
2001-09-25
Nguyen, Duc (Department: 2643)
Telephonic communications
With usage measurement
Call charge metering or monitoring
C379S120000, C379S142070, C379S045000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06295346
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for automatically placing phone calls to selected parties. More specifically, the invention provides for automatically placing phone calls to individuals specified by the calling party in response to a phone call by the calling party to an emergency service.
Currently, it is possible to expeditiously place a phone call to an emergency service provider. For example, by placing a single phone call to “911”, a variety of emergency services can be dispatched to respond to the emergency. However, when an emergency situation occurs, the emergency service providers are not the only persons that the individual involved in the emergency situation would possibly like to contact. For example, the individual may want to contact family members, work associates, and neighbors, among others, to provide information to them about the occurrence and nature of the emergency and about the individual's current and future personal situation (e.g., expectations as to when the individual will contact the family members to more fully discuss the situation). However, during an emergency situation, the individual involved in the emergency may not always be able to immediately phone those persons that they would like to initially provide information to. This could be for a variety of reasons including a lack of time to place the phone calls or an inability to remember the phone numbers for the people to be called in this time of crises.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide for an apparatus and method for automatically placing phone calls to a selected set of individuals in response to a single phone call to an emergency service provider placed by the individual involved in the emergency situation. Such a system could provide initial notification to persons associated with the individual involved in the emergency that the individual was involved in an emergency and to provide any other additional information that the affected individual would like to convey. In this manner, a single phone call to an emergency service provider could automatically initiate phone calls to other desired individuals.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The drawbacks in the prior art are overcome by the present invention for a method and apparatus for automatically placing phone calls to selected parties in response to a phone call placed by the calling party to an emergency service provider. When practicing one embodiment of the present invention, a calling party places a phone call to an emergency service provider by dialing into a service provider network. The service provider network determines the identity of the calling party by accessing a subscriber database. The network determines a set of parties to be called by utilizing the identity of the calling party to access the set of parties to be called from an outcall database. The calling party pre-defines the set of parties to be called (i.e., before an emergency occurs) in the event of an emergency and stores this information in the outcall database. The service provider network then establishes the phone call between the calling party and the emergency service provider and also automatically places phone calls to each individual included in the set of parties to be called that was defined by the calling party. The service provider network will provide a pre-defined message to each called individual.
In this manner, the present invention provides for a method and apparatus for automatically calling a set of individuals and providing a message to those individuals in response to a phone call by the service subscriber to an emergency service provider. The present invention allows the individual who is involved in an emergency situation to notify others of the emergency without requiring the individual to personally place phone calls to those they desire to notify.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4920560 (1990-04-01), Kageyama
patent: 5195126 (1993-03-01), Carrier et al.
patent: 5438615 (1995-08-01), Moen
patent: 5563931 (1996-10-01), Bishop et al.
patent: 5608786 (1997-03-01), Gordon
patent: 5717742 (1998-02-01), Hyde-Thomson
patent: 5862485 (1999-01-01), Linneweh, Jr. et al.
patent: 5912947 (1999-06-01), Langsenkamp et al.
Markowitz Robert Edward
Rosen Kenneth H.
Salimando Steven Charles
AT&T Corp.
Nguyen Duc
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