System and method for controlling a conference call

Details System and method for controlling a conference call System and method for controlling a conference call

1999-07-23

2002-02-19

Matar, Ahmad (Department: 2642)

Telephonic communications

Special services

Conferencing

C379S203010, C379S204010, C379S206010

Reexamination Certificate

active

06349136

ABSTRACT:

TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to the field of telephone features, and, more specifically, to a new feature for controlling conference calls.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Any participant on a conference call can place his or her telephone on hold. If a “music-on-hold” feature is assigned to that participant's line, music is played back to the far end party. In this case, however, the far end party is all of the other participants on the conference call. The injected music disrupts the conference call and there is no way for the remaining participants to identify or isolate who initiated the hold. Furthermore, one (or more) of the participants may have a high level of background noise or a noisy link and not be aware of it. Therefore, there is a need in the art for a method to drop a conference participant who is disrupting a conference call.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This problem is solved and a technical advance is achieved in the art by a system and method that provides a participant on a conference call with the ability to determine which party is injecting the noise into the call and to cause the switching system to drop the selected participant from the conference call. Advantageously, one of the conference call participants is the controlling participant. Alternatively, any member of the conference that can control a conference circuit (e.g., is using a touch-tone telephone) may be the controlling party.
A method according to this invention provides control of a conference call in an established conference call, wherein a controlling party enters a code. The controlling party is then isolated from the conference. Each conference participant is sequentially connected to the controlling party so that the controlling party may determine the noise level on that leg of the call. If there is no excess noise, then the controlling party may enter a code which causes the switch to select the next party on the conference call. When the controlling party discerns the offending conference participant with the noisy connection, the controlling party can signal the switch to drop the offending party. The controlling party may then rejoin all of the conference participants.


REFERENCES:
patent: 3912874 (1975-10-01), Botterell et al.
patent: 5844979 (1998-12-01), Raniere et al.
patent: 6178237 (2001-01-01), Horn

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