Automatic reporting of unwanted or unlawful telephonic communication

#The Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) provides a vehicle for any subscriber to telephonically connect with any other subscriber. As any calling party can place a call to any called party, a calling party can place unwanted communications to others. Such unwanted communications may constitute a violation of telemarketing laws, may constitute a crime, as in the case of a bomb threat, or may be placed to further other unlawful activity. A single caller may place thousands of unwanted and unlawful communications, as auto-dialing capability facilitates callers ability to call more frequently and at inappropriate times of day. These unwanted or unlawful calls may cause harm to persons and/or property.

#As a result of the ease and anonymity involved in telephonic communication, it has increasingly become a preferred method for bad actors to engage in or support unlawful activity. Complaints regarding unwanted or unlawful telephonic communications such as harassing, threatening, and telemarketing phone calls, faxes and pre-recorded messages have led to significant federal and state laws and regulations to protect subscribers from these abusive practices. Similar laws and regulations exist or have been proposed in other countries, including Canada, Australia, Mexico, and countries in the European Union. In addition, because these types of calls are harbingers of later harm, consumers may subsequently need a record of such events and/or physical protection as a consequence of unwanted calls.

#Preferably, called parties would report unwanted or unlawful calls to jurisdictional authorities and these authorities would respond as necessary and appropriate. However, beyond merely reporting that an unwanted or unlawful calling event occurred, called parties may have little additional useful or meaningful information which authorities can use to take action against the caller. Although caller ID capability generally may provide called parties with originating telephone numbers, not all called parties subscribe to caller ID service, and calling parties have means available to them for spoofing numbers that do not belong to them or blocking delivery of their numbers even when caller ID delivery service is used by the called party. Therefore, in the event of an unlawful communication, the called party may not have direct access to the calling party number (CPN) in order to report it. However, the number is stored in a designated location in the public network. Since the CPN is stored in the public network, it may be accessible by a called party without actually being visible to the called party.

#The foregoing and other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following more particular description of preferred embodiments of the invention, as illustrated in the accompanying drawings in which like reference characters refer to the same parts throughout the different views. The drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon illustrating the principles of the invention.

#FIG. 1 illustrates embodiments of a communication system.

#FIG. 2 illustrates an example call flow for the communication system of FIG. 1.

#FIG. 1 illustrates a representative communication system using the PSTN in order to illustrate principles of the present approach. It is also understood that the present approach may be applied to any network capable of providing a communication connection between an origin and destination. FIG. 1 is intended to display a wireline-to-wireline call as an example of an end-to-end network. As shown in FIG. 1, the end-to-end network includes an out-of-band signaling network and, in particular, the out-of-band signaling network in the example is a Signaling System 7 (SS7) network. Calling device 102, called device 104, and third party device 106 connect to telecommunication network 110 through respective switch nodes 112, 114, and 116. In the example shown in FIG. 1, network 110 is the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and may be understood to include switch nodes 112, 114, and 116.

#Calling device 102, called device 104, and third party device 106 represent communication devices such as wireline telephones, wireless telephones, satellite phone, smart phones or devices such as data-capable devices, facsimile machines, Private Branch Exchanges (PBXs), and answering machines, but may also represent automated dialing, texting/SMS, and calling devices. For purposes of example, the device 102 is referred to as “calling device,” indicating that it is the device that originates a call. Likewise, device 104 is referred to as “called device,” indicating that it is the device that receives the call. For example, calling device 102 may be a PBX with traditional station sets.

#Calling device 102 and called device 104 connect via links 122 and 124 to switch nodes 112 and 114 respectively. The switch nodes may include local processing switches, often referred to as central office switches. A central office switch may comprise any class 5 switch, for example, which includes memory and processor elements for storing and executing software routines for call processing, including providing access to the network 110 and various call features. In an embodiment, nodes 112, 114, and 116 each include a dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) receiver for receiving and processing DTMF signals sent from devices 102, 104 and potentially 106.