Patent Issued for Concurrent secondary electronic communication session (USPTO 11032335)

2021 JUN 25 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, a patent by the inventors John, Jiby (Suffield, CT, US), Knas, Michal (Monson, MA, US), filed on June 3, 2019, was published online on June 8, 2021.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11032335, is Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (Springfield, Massachusetts, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “As the processing power of computers have increased and as the Internet technology era allows for greater computer functionality and efficient computing system interconnectivity, more people use electronic communication sessions to virtually meet, discuss, and share information. For instance, many employees rely on electronic communication sessions (e.g., audio and/or video teleconference) to conduct various discussions with coworkers/clients and to share various files and work product.

“Since the use of the electronic communication session has become ubiquitous, users have discovered many technical shortcomings. For instance, while connected to a group of people in a teleconference, a user may desire to have a secondary private communication with a selected group of participants. However, conventional electronic communication sessions do not provide this functionality. Conventionally, users must pause the electronic communication session (e.g., place a teleconference on hold or mute the line) to internally discuss private matters. This has created a negative user experience because, first, participants who are not participating in the private conversation must wait until the private conversation has ended. Second, participants of the private conversation must then initiate a separate secondary electronic communication session every time they desire to privately discusses a matter. This is more difficult and complicated for private communication sessions involving a high number of participants or geographically dispersed participants. Third, participants not participating in the private conversation will be aware of the private conversation, which may be undesirable.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “For the aforementioned reasons, there is a need for a surreptitious secondary communication session where a user may privately communicate with one or more participants of a primary electronic communication session. There is a need for a system to efficiently identify the secondary communication sessions’ participants and automatically establish a connection allowing the identified participants to be involved in the primary and secondary communication sessions concurrently.

“In an embodiment, a method comprises identifying, by a server, a set of electronic devices associated with a first electronic communication session; upon receiving an instruction from a first electronic device within the set of electronic devices during the first electronic communication session to establish a second communication session between a subset of the set of electronic devices: establishing, by the server, the second electronic communication session between the subset of electronic devices; reducing, by the server, a volume of the first electronic communication session outputted on each electronic device within the subset of electronic devices, whereby each electronic device within the subset of the set of electronic devices allows users to listen to audio of the second electronic communication session rather than the first electronic communication session; and disabling, by the server for the first electronic communication session, a microphone of any electronic device within the subset of electronic devices until termination of the second electronic communication session.

“In another embodiment, a computer system comprises a set of electronic devices configured to communicate with each other via a first electronic communication session; a subset of the set of electronic devices configured to communicate with each other via a second electronic communication session; and a server in communication with the set and subset of electronic devices, the server configured to: identify a set of electronic devices associated with a first electronic communication session; upon receiving an instruction from a first electronic device within the set of electronic devices during the first electronic communication session to establish a second communication session between a subset of the set of electronic devices: establish the second electronic communication session between the subset of electronic devices; reduce a volume of the first electronic communication session outputted on each electronic device within the subset of electronic devices, whereby each electronic device within the subset of the set of electronic devices allows users to listen to audio of the second electronic communication session rather than the first electronic communication session; and disable, for the first electronic communication session, a microphone of any electronic device within the subset of electronic devices until termination of the second electronic communication session.

“It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the disclosed systems and methods for providing beacon-based navigation system.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method comprising: identifying, by a server, a set of electronic devices associated with a first electronic communication session; upon receiving an instruction from a first electronic device within the set of electronic devices during the first electronic communication session to establish a second electronic communication session: automatically selecting, by the server, a subset of the set of electronic devices based on an attribute of a network used by each electronic device to communicate with the server to establish the first electronic communication session; establishing, by the server, the second electronic communication session between the subset of the set of electronic devices; reducing, by the server, a volume of the first electronic communication session outputted on each electronic device within the subset of the set of electronic devices to a predetermined volume level, whereby each electronic device within the subset of the set of electronic devices allows users to listen to audio of the second electronic communication session rather than the first electronic communication session; and disabling, by the server for the first electronic communication session, a microphone of each electronic device within the subset of electronic devices until a termination of the second electronic communication session.

“2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: displaying, by the server, a transcript of communication within the first electronic communication session on at least one electronic device associated with the subset of the set of electronic devices.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein the subset of the set of electronic devices is selected by the first electronic device.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein the subset of the set of electronic devices is selected by the server based on a location of each electronic device being within a predetermined proximity to the first electronic device.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein the subset of the set of electronic devices is further selected by the server in accordance with an identifier of each electronic device.

“6. The method of claim 5, wherein the identifier of each electronic device comprises at least one of internet protocol address, media access control address, phone number, and electronic mail address associated with each electronic device.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first electronic communication session and the second electronic communication session are established using different electronic channels.

“8. The method of claim 1, further comprising: retrieving, by the server, a geographic location identifier of each electronic device within the set of electronic devices; disabling, by the server for the first electronic communication session, a microphone of any electronic device within the set of electronic devices that is located within a predetermined proximity to the first electronic device until a termination of the second electronic communication session.

“9. The method of claim 8, wherein the geographic location identifier of each electronic device corresponds to a GPS location or a beacon identifier.

“10. The method of claim 1, wherein the server receives a revised list of electronic devices within the subset of the set of electronic devices while the second electronic communication session is established.

“11. A computer system comprising: a set of electronic devices configured to communicate with each other via a first electronic communication session; a subset of the set of electronic devices configured to communicate with each other via a second electronic communication session; and a server in communication with the set and subset of the set of electronic devices, the server configured to: identify a set of electronic devices associated with the first electronic communication session; upon receiving an instruction from a first electronic device within the set of electronic devices during the first electronic communication session to establish the second electronic communication session: automatically select the subset of the set of electronic devices based on an attribute a network used by each electronic device to communicate with the server to establish the first electronic communication session; establish the second electronic communication session between the subset of the set of electronic devices; reduce a volume of the first electronic communication session outputted on each electronic device within the subset of the set of electronic devices to a predetermined volume level, whereby each electronic device within the subset of the set of electronic devices allows users to listen to audio of the second electronic communication session rather than the first electronic communication session; and disable, for the first electronic communication session, a microphone of any electronic device within the subset of the set of electronic devices until termination of the second electronic communication session.

“12. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the server is further configured to: display a transcript of communication within the first electronic communication session on at least one electronic device associated with the subset of the set of electronic devices.

“13. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the subset of the set of electronic devices is selected by the first electronic device.

“14. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the subset of the set of electronic devices is selected by the server based on a location of each electronic device being within a predetermined proximity to the first electronic device.

“15. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the subset of the set of electronic devices is further selected by the server in accordance with an identifier of each electronic device.

“16. The computer system of claim 15, wherein the identifier of each electronic device comprises at least one of internet protocol address, media access control address, phone number, and electronic mail address associated with each electronic device.

“17. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the first electronic communication session and the second electronic communication session are established using different electronic channels.

“18. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the server is further configured to: retrieve a geographic location identifier of each electronic device within the set of electronic devices; and disable, for the first electronic communication session, the microphone of any electronic device within the subset of the set of electronic devices, that is located within a predetermined proximity to the first electronic device, until a termination of the second electronic communication session.

“19. The computer system of claim 18, wherein the geographic location identifier of each electronic device corresponds to a GPS location or a beacon identifier.

“20. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the server receives a revised list of electronic device within the subset of the set of electronic devices while the second electronic communication session is established.”

For more information, see this patent: John, Jiby. Concurrent secondary electronic communication session. U.S. Patent Number 11032335, filed June 3, 2019, and published online on June 8, 2021. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11032335.PN.&OS=PN/11032335RS=PN/11032335

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