Multimodal conversation park and retrieval
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsRajesh Ramanathan, Brian Stucker
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Established multimodal conversations are enabled to be parked within an enhanced communication system such that a subscriber of the system can be notified through a variety of means and enabled to retrieve selected or all modalities for continuing the conversation. Different modalities may be parked together or separately. While waiting for the subscriber to retrieve the conversation, a participant may receive audio, video, presentation, or other forms of content as playback.
Claims18
A method to be executed at least in part in a computing device for facilitating multimodal conversation park and retrieval, the method comprising:
- receiving a request for parking a multimodal conversation at a communication server;
- parking the conversation, wherein distinct modalities of the conversation are identified with a conversation identifier;
- notifying at least one subscriber about the parked conversation;
- enabling the at least one subscriber to retrieve at least one of the distinct modalities of the parked conversation;
- upon receiving an indication of selected modalities of the parked conversation from the at least one subscriber, enabling the subscriber to continue the conversation in the selected modalities;
- and
- providing a subscriber requesting to park the conversation with a parking location identifier of the conversation such that the notified at least one subscriber is enabled to retrieve the at least one of the distinct modalities of the parked conversation from a location identified by the location identifier.
A communication system for implementing multimodal conversation park and retrieval, the system comprising:
- a communication server configured to facilitate multimodal communications between endpoints of the system;
- a park management server configured to:
- receive a request for parking an established multimodal conversation from an endpoint of the system;
- park the conversation in one of:
- a centralized manner at the park management server and a distributed manner at a plurality of servers, wherein distinct modalities of the conversation are associated together through a conversation identifier;
- provide a location identifier to the requesting endpoint such that another endpoint can be notified about the parked conversation;
- and
- enable the endpoint to retrieve at least one of the distinct modalities of the parked conversation;
- a participant of the conversation configured to:
- employ at least two endpoints to participate in the conversation and enable the endpoints to negotiate park operations among themselves.
A tangible computer-readable memory device with instructions stored thereon for managing multimodal conversations with park and retrieval capability, the instructions comprising:
- facilitating a multimodal conversation among subscribers of a unified communication system, wherein each subscriber employs at least one endpoint to participate in the conversation;
- receiving a request for parking the multimodal conversation from a participating endpoint;
- parking the conversation, wherein distinct modalities of the conversation are associated together through a conversation identifier;
- providing a location identifier to the requesting endpoint such that another participating endpoint can be notified about the parked conversation;
- providing multimodal content to participating endpoints of the conversation while the conversation is parked;
- enabling a notified endpoint to retrieve at least one of the distinct modalities of the parked conversation;
- and
- providing an endpoint requesting to park the conversation with a parking location identifier of the conversation such that the notified other endpoint is enabled to retrieve the at least one of the distinct modalities of the parked conversation from a location identified by the location identifier.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.