Systems and methods for reducing the occurrence of annoying voice calls
AssigneeBBNT Solutions LLC
InventorsBrig Barnum Elliott, David Spencer Pearson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system penalizes callers for annoying voice calls. The system identifies a caller (540) associated with a call to a called party in response to invocation of a feature activation code by the called party. The system records the occurrence of the feature activation code invocation (550) and notifies a billing entity (560) of the identity of the caller and the invocation of the feature activation code so that the billing entity can charge the caller for the call to the called party.
Claims20
A method for penalizing callers for annoying voice calls, comprising:
- identifying a caller associated with a call to a called party in response to invocation of a feature activation code by the called party;
- recording the invocation of the feature activation code;
- notifying a billing entity of the identity of the caller and the invocation of the feature activation code so that the billing entity can charge the caller;
- and
- notifying the billing entity of an identity of the called party and the invocation of the feature activation code so that the billing entity can charge the called party.
A system for penalizing callers for annoying calls, comprising:
- means for receiving at least one notification of an invocation of a feature activation code by called parties associated with calls from callers;
- means for identifying the callers associated with the calls in response to the notifications;
- and
- means for notifying a billing entity of the identities of the callers, identities of the called parties, and the invocations of the feature activation code so that the billing entity can charge the callers and the called parties.
A system for penalizing callers for annoying voice calls, comprising:
- a memory configured to store a subscriber database having a plurality of subscriber records;
- and
- a processor configured to:
- identify a caller associated with a call to a subscriber in response to invocation of a feature activation code by the subscriber,
- record the invocation of the feature activation code in a subscriber record in the subscriber database, and
- notify a billing entity of the identity of the caller, an identity of the subscriber, and the invocation of the feature activation code so that the billing entity can charge the caller and the subscriber.
A computer-readable medium that stores instructions executable by at least one processor to perform a method for penalizing callers for annoying calls, the computer-readable medium comprising:
- instructions for identifying one or more callers associated with calls to called parties in response to invocations of a feature activation code by the called parties;
- instructions for recording the invocations of the feature activation code;
- and
- instructions for notifying a billing entity of the identities of the callers, identities of the called parties, and the invocations of the feature activation code so that the billing entity can charge the callers and the called parties.
A method for providing a caller penalizing service, comprising:
- detecting invocation of the caller penalizing service by a called party for a call from a caller to the called party;
- charging the caller a first fee for the call;
- and
- charging the called party a second fee for invocation of the caller penalizing service.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.