US 8,477,912 B2Granted

Content sharing through multimedia ringback tones

AssigneeAlcatel Lucent

InventorsYigang Cai, Shiyan Hua

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

Communication networks and associated methods are disclosed that provide a content sharing service through multimedia ringback tones. The communication network comprises a network node and a multimedia ringback system. The network node receives a call from a calling party to a subscriber of the content sharing service, and routes the call to the multimedia ringback system. The multimedia ringback system identifies a multimedia ringback tone for the call where the multimedia ringback tone includes a message prompting the calling party to share content of the subscriber, and provides the multimedia ringback tone to the calling party. The multimedia ringback system then receives a request for the content indicated in the multimedia ringback tone from the calling party, and initiates the transfer of the content to the calling party responsive to the request.

Claims18

Dependent claims

A system comprising:

a multimedia ringback system adapted to receive a call routed from a network node that serves a device of a calling party, wherein the call is placed to a subscriber of a content sharing service;
the multimedia ringback system is further adapted to identify a multimedia ringback tone for the call that includes a message prompting the calling party to share content of the subscriber, and to provide the multimedia ringback tone to the calling party device during ringback while the calling party waits for the call to be answered by the subscriber;
during ringback and before the subscriber answers the call, the multimedia ringback system is further adapted to receive a request from the calling party device to download the content indicated in the prompting message of the multimedia ringback tone;
and
during ringback and before the subscriber answers the call, the multimedia ringback system is further adapted to initiate the download of the content to the calling party device responsive to the request.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.