U.S. patent application number 12/367235 was filed with the patent office on 2009-06-04 for method for initiating internet telephone service from a web page.
This patent application is currently assigned to Yahoo! Inc.. Invention is credited to Joe S. Abuan, Seung-Ho Cho, Wongyu Cho.
Application Number | 20090141709 12/367235 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 33511917 |
Filed Date | 2009-06-04 |
United States Patent
Application |
20090141709 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Cho; Wongyu ; et
al. |
June 4, 2009 |
METHOD FOR INITIATING INTERNET TELEPHONE SERVICE FROM A WEB
PAGE
Abstract
A direct telephone dialing scheme for initiating internet
telephone service from a web page is provided. The scheme allows a
caller, using an internet telephone service, to place telephone
call to a telephone number appearing on any web page directly from
that web page. In one embodiment, a caller navigates to a desired
web page on the internet and the caller dials a telephone number on
that web page directly to initiate a two-way audio communication
with the destination telephone number using an internet telephone
service. The direct telephone dialing scheme of the present
invention improves the accessibility and ease of use of internet
telephone services. Furthermore, the direct telephone dialing
scheme can be used with video, data, and fax communications which
are supported by the VoIP data communication standard.
Inventors: |
Cho; Wongyu; (San Jose,
CA) ; Cho; Seung-Ho; (Santa Clara, CA) ;
Abuan; Joe S.; (Fremont, CA) |
Correspondence
Address: |
Yahoo! Inc.;c/o DARBY & DARBY P.C.
P.O. BOX 770, Church Street Station
NEW YORK
NY
10008-0770
US
|
Assignee: |
Yahoo! Inc.
Sunnyvale
CA
|
Family ID: |
33511917 |
Appl. No.: |
12/367235 |
Filed: |
February 6, 2009 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
|
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11644013 |
Dec 21, 2006 |
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12367235 |
|
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09668427 |
Sep 22, 2000 |
6834048 |
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11644013 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
370/352 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H04M 7/003 20130101;
H04M 3/4938 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
370/352 |
International
Class: |
H04L 12/66 20060101
H04L012/66 |
Claims
1. A system for providing telephone service over a network,
comprising: a browser that enables a display of at least one page
on the network; a gateway coupled to the network and another
network, wherein the network enables communication of voice data
and the other network enables communication of at least one voice
signal, and wherein the gateway provides a conversion between voice
data and at least one voice signal to enable telephone service
between at least one caller communicating on the network and at
least one node on the other network; and an application that is
configured and arranged to perform actions, including: determining
if a string based representation of a telephone number is included
in the at least one page based on a comparison to at least one
format; enabling a modified display of a determined telephone
number by the browser; and in response to a selection of the
modified display of the telephone number, enabling telephone
service to be provided over the gateway between a caller and a node
associated with determined the telephone number.
2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a firewall on the
network that provides secure access by the browser to the at least
one page on the network.
3. The system of claim 1, wherein the gateway is an Internet
Telephone Service Provider (ITSP) gateway.
4. The system of claim 1, wherein at least part of the network
includes the Internet and the other network is a Public Switched
Telephone Network (PSTN).
5. The system of claim 1, wherein the format enables the comparison
to at least one of a domestic telephone area code, international
country code, international city code, or an international
telephone area code.
6. The system of claim 1, wherein the modified display for the
telephone number includes at least one of a highlighted telephone
number, an underlined telephone number, or a bolded telephone
number.
7. The system of claim 1, wherein the application is configured and
arranged to perform further actions, including: if the string based
representation of the telephone number is further determined to
include a hyperlink, preventing the providing of the telephone
service over the gateway in response to the selection of the
modified display of the telephone number.
8. The system of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the
application is arranged as at least one of a dynamic linked library
or a java script.
9. The system of claim 1, wherein the node is at least one of a
telephone, or an audio communication device.
10. The system of claim 1, wherein the application is configured
and arranged to perform further actions, including: until the
caller is logged into the telephone service, preventing the
providing of the telephone service over the gateway.
11. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one page is a web
page, and wherein the web page is provided to the browser from a
web site on the network.
12. An apparatus for providing telephone service over a network,
comprising: a browser that enables a display of at least one page
on the network; a memory that comprises stored data; a processor
that is configured and arranged to enable actions based at least in
part on executing at least a portion of the stored data, including:
determining if a string based representation of a telephone number
is included in the at least one page based on a comparison to at
least one format; enabling a modified display of a determined
telephone number in the at least one page; and in response to a
selection of the modified display of the telephone number, enabling
telephone service to be provided over a gateway between a caller
communicating on the network and a node on another network that is
associated with the telephone number, wherein the network enables
communication of voice data and the other network enables
communication of at least one voice signal, and wherein the gateway
provides a conversion between voice data and at least one voice
signal to enable telephone service between the caller and the
node.
13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the format enables the
comparison to at least one of a domestic telephone area code,
international country code, international city code, or an
international telephone area code.
14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the modified display for the
telephone number includes at least one of a highlighted telephone
number, an underlined telephone number, or a bolded telephone
number.
15. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the processor is configured
and arranged to enable further actions, including: if the string
based representation of the telephone number is further determined
to include a hyperlink, preventing the providing of the telephone
service over the gateway in response to the selection of the
modified display of the telephone number.
16. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein at least a portion of the
data is arranged as at least one of a dynamic linked library or a
java script.
17. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the node is at least one of
a telephone, or an audio communication device that is associated
with the telephone number.
18. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the processor is configured
and arranged to enable further actions, including: until the caller
is logged into the telephone service, preventing the providing of
the telephone service over the gateway.
19. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the at least one page is a
web page, and wherein the web page is provided to the browser from
a web site on the network.
20. A method for providing telephone service over a network,
comprising: receiving a page on the network; determining if a
telephone number is included in the received page based at least in
part on a comparison between content in the page to at least one
string based format; enabling a modified display of a determined
telephone number in the received page; and in response to a
selection of the modified display of the telephone number, enabling
telephone service to be provided over a gateway between a caller
communicating over the network and a node on another network that
is associated with the telephone number, wherein the network
enables communication of voice data and the other network enables
communication of at least one voice signal, and wherein the gateway
provides a conversion between voice data and at least one voice
signal to enable telephone service between the caller and the
node.
21. The method of claim 20, wherein the string based format enables
the comparison to at least one of a domestic telephone area code,
international country code, international city code, or an
international telephone area code.
22. The method of claim 20, wherein the modified display for the
telephone number includes at least one of a highlighted telephone
number, an underlined telephone number, or a bolded telephone
number.
23. The method of claim 20, further comprising: if the string based
representation of the telephone number is further determined to
include a hyperlink, preventing the providing of the telephone
service over the gateway in response to the selection of the
modified display of the telephone number.
24. The method of claim 20, wherein the node is at least one of a
telephone, or an audio communication device that is associated with
the telephone number.
25. The method of claim 20, further comprising: until the caller is
logged into the telephone service, preventing the providing of the
telephone service over the gateway.
26. The method of claim 20, wherein the at least one page is a web
page, and wherein the web page is received from a web site on the
network.
Description
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is a divisional patent application of U.S.
patent application Ser. No. 11/644,013 filed on Dec. 21, 2006;
which is a reissue of application Ser. No. 09/668,427 (U.S. Pat.
No. 6,834,048) filed on Sep. 22, 2000, which claims the benefit
under 35 U.S.C. .sctn.121, and which are incorporated herein by
reference in their entirety.
REFERENCE TO APPENDICES
[0002] Appendix A, which is an integral part of the present
disclosure, includes a computer program listing of components of
the Microsoft Visual C++ project used to create a dynamically
linked library (DLL) named IEHooker.DLL for implementing the direct
telephone dialing scheme according to one embodiment of the present
invention.
[0003] Appendix B, which is an integral part of the present
disclosure, shows modifications to the Microsoft Windows registry
for implementing the direct telephone dialing scheme according to
one embodiment of the present invention.
[0004] Appendices A and B contain copyrighted material. The
copyright owner, Dialpad.com, Inc., has no objection to the
facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documents or patent
disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent
files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrights
whatsoever.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0005] 1. Field of the Invention
[0006] The present invention generally relates to voice
communications; and in particular, the present invention relates to
a method for initiating internet telephone service from a web
page.
[0007] 2. Background of the Invention
[0008] Voice over internet protocol (VOIP) technology has spawned
made available internet telephone services. An internet telephone
service allows a caller to place a telephone call from his/her
personal computer (PC) through the internet to another audio
communication device, such as a wired or wireless telephone. VoIP
technology is based on the ITU-T H.323 standard and supports audio,
video, data, or fax communications using the internet protocol (IP)
on the public internet and within private intranets.
[0009] Internet telephone service can take many forms. Typically, a
caller accesses an internet telephone service provider's web site
which provides an interface to the internet telephone service. The
caller enters then the telephone number he wishes to dial. The
telephone service "dials" the telephone number and "rings" the
destination communication device (e.g. a telephone).
[0010] However, improvements over the existing internet telephone
services are desired. In particular, it is desirable to provide
features to make internet telephone services more convenient and
accessible.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0011] In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a
method for initiating an internet telephone service from a web page
containing at least one telephone number comprises: (a) accessing
the web page using a browser; (b) downloading a web page document
associated with the web page; (c) parsing the web page document for
detecting a character string indicative of a telephone number; (d)
modifying the character string in the web page document into a link
to the internet telephone service; (e) providing the web page
document including the modified character string to the browser;
and (f) displaying the web page on the browser including the
telephone number.
[0012] According to another embodiment of the present invention,
the method further comprises: (g) selecting the character string
indicative of the telephone number; (h) activating the link to the
internet telephone service; (i) passing the telephone number to the
internet telephone service; (j) launching a server side script at
the internet telephone service for initiating a telephone call to
the telephone number; and (k) establishing two-way communications
between a caller selecting the character string and a destination
audio device designated by the telephone number.
[0013] The present invention is better understood upon
consideration of the detailed description below and the
accompanying drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0014] FIG. 1A illustrates one embodiment of a communication system
for providing audio communication between a personal computer and
an audio communication device.
[0015] FIG. 1B illustrates another embodiment of a communication
system for providing audio communication between a personal
computer and an audio communication device where the personal
computer is located behind a firewall.
[0016] FIG. 2 illustrates the conventional operation of a browser
for downloading and displaying a web page document.
[0017] FIG. 3 illustrates the operation of a browser together with
the direct telephone dialing scheme of the present invention.
[0018] FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating the detailed operation
of the direct telephone dialing scheme for internet telephony
according to one embodiment of the present invention.
[0019] FIG. 5A illustrates an exemplary web page containing
telephone numbers displayed by Microsoft Internet Explorer.TM..
[0020] FIG. 5B illustrates the web page of FIG. 5A displayed by
Microsoft Internet Explorers.TM. after the operation of the direct
telephone dialing scheme of the present invention.
[0021] In the present disclosure, like objects which appear in more
than one figure are provided with like reference numerals.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0022] In accordance with the present invention, a direct telephone
dialing scheme for internet telephony is provided to allow a
caller, using an internet telephone service, to place a telephone
call to a telephone number appearing on any web page directly from
that web page. In one embodiment, a caller navigates on the
internet to a desired web page and then clicks on a telephone
number appearing on the web page to initiate a telephone call using
an internet telephone service. Contrary to a conventional telephone
service initialization process, the caller may place a telephone
call without the need to navigate to the internet telephone service
provider's web site and enter or type in the desired telephone
number on the service provider's web site. The direct telephone
dialing scheme of the present invention greatly improves the
accessibility and ease of use of internet telephone services and
provides convenience not realized by conventional internet
telephone services.
[0023] A direct telephone dialing scheme of the present invention
can be used with any internet telephone service, such as those
provided by Dialpad.com, Phonefree.com, and Net2phone. In one
embodiment, the internet telephone service is based on the
communication system described in co-pending and commonly assigned
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/401,898, entitled "Scaleable
Communications System," of Wongyu Cho et al., filed September 24,
1999, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
FIG. 1A illustrates one embodiment of the communication system of
the aforementioned patent application by Cho et al. which provides
audio communication between a personal computer 11 and an audio
communication device 14. In operation, a local caller using
computer 11, equipped with a sound card and headset, for example,
uses a web browser to access and log onto web site 16 of an
internet telephone service provider. After logging-on, the local
caller provides the phone number of regular telephone 14 to web
site 16, which then directs an Internet Telephone Service Provider
(ITSP) gateway 12 to provide a voice connection between computer 11
and telephone 14. ITSP gateways are available from several network
service providers including the IDT Corporation and Qwest
Communications. ITSP gateway 12 is coupled to a remote caller who,
in this example, uses telephone 14 linked to a public switched
telephone network (PSTN) 13. PSTN 13 provides either wired or
wireless telephone service commonly known as "plain old telephone
service" (POTS). ITSP gateway 12 converts the voice data from
computer 11 into corresponding voice signals for transmission to
telephone 14 through PSTN 13. Conversely, ITSP gateway 12 converts
voice signals received from telephone 14 into a form that is
suitable for transmission over the internet to computer 11. The
direct-dial internet telephone service initiation scheme of the
present invention can also be used with a network in which computer
11 is located behind a firewall 15 as illustrated in FIG. 1B. A
method for exchanging data with computers within a secure network
is described in copending and commonly assigned U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 09/627,723, "Data Exchange With Computers
Within A Secure Network", by Wongyu Cho and Hyungkeun Hong,
incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
[0024] To use an internet telephone service to place a telephone
call, a caller uses a personal computer (such as PC 11 in FIG. 1A)
to access the internet or a private network. The personal computer
is equipped with a web browser such as Microsoft Internet
Explorer.TM. or Netscape Navigator.TM. for accessing a web page
with graphical content. To specify a web site, the caller enters a
uniform resource locator (URL) specifying both the server and the
specific data ("web page") requested. The URL may specify a
hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) or another transfer protocol for
communicating between the server and the browser. In conventional
internet telephone service, the caller accesses the web site of an
internet telephone service provider and enters the telephone number
of the destination communication device on a "console" (e.g., a
graphical caller interface) of the provider's web site. The
internet telephone service provider then dials the telephone
number. However, in many instances, the caller may navigate to a
web page containing telephone numbers which the caller wishes to
dial. For example, the caller may navigate to the web page of a
local restaurant which includes the telephone number of the
restaurant. To place a telephone call to the restaurant using
internet telephony, such as to make a dinner reservation, the
caller has to record the telephone number in some manner and go to
the web site of his desired internet telephone service provider by
specifying the provider's URL. The caller then enters the recorded
telephone number into the console at the web site of the telephone
service provider for dialing the telephone number. This telephone
dialing process is very cumbersome, particularly when the caller is
viewing a page containing several telephone numbers which he wishes
to dial in sequence, such as when the caller is viewing a yellow
page listing of restaurants in the local area.
[0025] The direct telephone dialing scheme of the present invention
facilitates convenient internet telephone service by integrating
internet telephone services with telephone numbers appearing on any
web pages. A caller may dial a telephone number appearing on any
web page directly from that web page. In one embodiment, the caller
dials the telephone number by placing the cursor on the telephone
number and selecting the telephone number (such as by clicking on
the number). The caller does not have to leave the web page he is
currently viewing and can thus conveniently dial one or more of the
telephone numbers appearing on the web page.
[0026] According to one embodiment of the present invention, the
direct telephone dialing scheme for internet telephony is embodied
in a software program operating as a browser level application. The
software program, called the Direct Dial software program, is
installed in the caller's computer and works cooperatively with the
browser application to provide the caller with a more convenient
access to internet telephone services. The operation of the direct
telephone dialing scheme with a browser application is explained
with reference to the flowcharts in FIGS. 2 and 3.
[0027] Referring to FIG. 2, when a caller navigates to a new web
page identified by a new URL, the browser performs three basic
functions. First, the browser downloads the selected web page
document (step 200). Typically, the web page document is written
using HTML (hypertext markup language). Then, the browser
interprets the web page document and prepares the host environment
for the document (step 202). Finally, the browser renders the web
page on the caller's computer display (step 204). When the direct
telephone dialing scheme for internet telephony of the present
invention is installed into the caller's computer, the browser
operates according to the flowchart in FIG. 3. The direct telephone
dialing scheme operates to intercept a web page document downloaded
by the browser, and parses and modifies the web page as needed
(step 310) before the web page is interpreted by the browser (step
202). Specifically, the direct telephone dialing scheme operates to
parse the web page document, detect for text strings matching the
criteria of telephone numbers, and modify the text string into a
link to an internet telephone service provider so that the caller
may activate the internet telephone service upon selecting or
clicking on the modified text string. After the direct dial
software program operates on the web page, the web page document
with the modified text string is returned to the browser,
interpreted (step 202), and then rendered on the computer display
of the caller's computer (step 204).
[0028] FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating the detailed operation
of the direct telephone dialing scheme for internet telephony
according to one embodiment of the present invention. First, a
caller installs the Direct Dial software program that embodies the
direct telephone dialing scheme of the present invention (step
402). For instance, the caller can copy the Direct Dial software
program to his host computer and install the software program on
the computer as is conventionally done. In one implementation, the
Direct Dial software program is provided in a dynamically linked
library (DLL) file and after the caller copies the DLL file to his
host computer, the caller installs the DLL file by registering the
file with the Microsoft Windows.TM. operating system using the
"REGSVR32.exe" file. When the Direct Dial software program is
installed onto the caller's computer, the program is loaded
whenever the browser application is activated.
[0029] After the caller installs the Direct Dial software program,
the caller can then invoke the browser application and access the
internet, selecting web sites she wishes to view. To access a
particular web page, the caller specifies the URL of the desired
web page and the browser downloads the web page document associated
with the URL (step 404). Before the web page is interpreted by the
browser for display on the computer screen, the direct telephone
dialing program of the present invention intercepts the web page
(step 406). The direct telephone dialing scheme of the present
invention operates to parse the web page document and detect text
strings which constitute telephone numbers appearing in the
document (step 408). In one embodiment, the direct telephone
dialing scheme examines the character strings in the document and
identifies character strings having the following formats as
constituting telephone numbers:
(###)###-####,
(###) ###-####,
###.###.####,
###/###/####,
###/###-####,
###-###-####,
(###-###-####),
#-###-###-190 ###,
+# (###) ###-####,
+# (###)###-####,
+# ### ### ####,
+#-### ### ####,
+#-### ###-####,
+#-###-###-####,
### ### ####,
### ###.####,
### ###-####, and
##########,
where # represents an alphanumeric character from 0 to 9 and from A
to Z. Note that the direct telephone dialing scheme recognizes a
character string with the format "##########" as a telephone number
only when the first three characters are numeric characters from 0
to 9. In the present embodiment, the direct telephone dialing
scheme recognizes any 10-digit alphanumeric string or any 11-digit
alphanumeric string as telephone numbers. Furthermore, the
alphanumeric strings may use any form of character separations
including but not limited to: ".", "/", "-", "+", "(", and")".
Thus, the formats given above can be used to recognize United
States telephone numbers in any format. The use of alphanumeric
characters in the present embodiment allows the recognition of
telephone numbers which are spelled in alphabetical characters,
such as 1-800-ASK-USPS used by the United States Postal Service. In
the present embodiment, the recognized telephone numbers always
include the area code, even for local calling. However, the 1
prefix is optional. The advantage of only recognizing telephone
numbers including the area code is to ensure that the telephone
call is placed to the correct recipient. Since the internet allows
the caller to access web pages without geographic limits, a caller
often accesses web pages outside of his local telephone dialing
area. By recognizing only telephone numbers including the area
code, the direct telephone dialing scheme of the present invention
ensures that any telephone call placed will be to the correct
recipient. Of course, the area code requirement is optional and the
direct telephone dialing scheme can be made to work with telephone
numbers not including area codes.
[0030] Of course, the direct telephone dialing scheme of the
present invention can also operate with international telephone
numbers for dialing a telephone number outside of the country the
caller is in. Additional telephone number templates can be added to
the direct telephone dialing scheme for recognizing international
telephone numbers. For example, a typical Korean telephone number
has the format: 82-2-2000-1000. If it is important to recognize
Korean telephone numbers, a telephone number template such as:
##-#-####-#### can be used. Furthermore, the direct telephone
dialing scheme of the present invention can also append the
necessary international dialing access code to the international
telephone number to facilitate international calling using an
internet telephone service. Thus, if the caller is in the United
States, the direct telephone dialing scheme can append the code
"011" to the beginning of an international telephone number so that
an internet telephone service can place the telephone call directly
to the oversea recipient.
[0031] After the direct telephone dialing scheme identifies certain
character strings in the web page document as telephone numbers,
the telephone dialing scheme proceeds to modify the identified
character strings (step 410). Specifically, the character strings
are modified to include a link to an internet telephone service
provider. In one embodiment, the appearance of character strings is
also modified. For example, the character strings can be
underlined, highlighted, or bolded. By modifying the appearance of
the character strings, the direct telephone dialing scheme of the
present invention identifies to the caller the character strings on
the web page which have been designated as telephone numbers and
are thus available for direct telephone service initiation. After
the direct telephone dialing scheme operates on the web page
document, the document is returned to the browser (step 412). The
browser interprets the modified web page, and displays the modified
web page on the caller's computer screen (step 414). FIG. 5A
illustrates an exemplary web page without being modified by the
direct telephone dialing scheme of the present invention. In FIG.
5A, a telephone listing of pregnancy centers provided by
YellowBook.com.TM. is shown. FIG. 5B illustrates the same web page
after the operation of the direct telephone dialing scheme of the
present invention. The character strings in the web page that have
been underlined have been designated as telephone numbers and can
be used to activate internet telephone service.
[0032] To place a telephone call to a telephone number designated
by the direct telephone dialing scheme, the caller selects the
designated telephone numbers by clicking on the underlined or
hi-lighted text (step 416). Because the designated telephone number
is a link to an internet telephone service provider, selection of
the telephone number launches the internet telephone service (step
418). The internet telephone service proceeds in accordance with
the communication protocol of the service provider. In one
instance, the service provider requires the caller to login to the
service provider's network. Thus, the service provider determines
whether or not the caller has already logged into the network (step
419). If the caller has not logged in, then the service provider
prompts the caller for login information (step 420). After the
caller logs into the provider's network, the internet telephone
service provider places the telephone call to the designated
telephone number (step 422). As mentioned above, any number of
internet telephony technology can be used to place the telephone
call and accomplish voice communication between the caller and the
designated audio communication device. The services provided by
Dialpad.com are one exemplary internet telephone service.
[0033] According to another embodiment of the present invention,
the telephone number detection step 408 of the direct telephone
dialing scheme further detects whether the character string
identified as a telephone number is itself a hypertext link. If the
character string is itself a hypertext link, then the direct
telephone dialing scheme will not designate the character string as
a telephone number and modification step 410 will not modify the
character string into a link to an internet telephone service
provider. In this manner, the direct telephone dialing scheme
avoids writing over existing links in the web page and preserves
the integrity of the web page document. In one embodiment, when the
web page is written in HTML format, the direct telephone dialing
scheme determines if a character string is a hypertext link by
detecting for the anchor element A or a preceding the character
string which is used to denote the character string as a hypertext
link.
[0034] According to yet another embodiment of the present
invention, the direct telephone dialing scheme provides a caller
interface to allow the caller to enable or disable the direct
telephone dialing function. When disabled, the browser operates
according to the flow chart illustrated in FIG. 2.
[0035] An implementation of the direct telephone dialing scheme of
the present invention is now described using Microsoft Internet
Explorer.TM. as an example. Of course, persons of ordinary skill in
the art can adapt the present teachings to work with other types of
web browsers. Appendix A includes a computer program listing of
components of the Microsoft Visual C++ project used to create a
dynamically linked library (DLL) named IEHooker.DLL which
implements the direct telephone dialing scheme according to one
embodiment of the present invention. The files contained in the
computer program listing detail the customization for implementing
the direct telephone dialing scheme in Internet Explorer. When a
caller installs IEHooker.DLL onto its computer, the objects in the
DLL become registered with the Windows Registry and will be
available for use by Internet Explorer. In the present
implementation, the direct telephone dialing scheme is applied to
the internet telephone service provided by Dialpad.com and the
direct telephone dialing scheme is called "Dialpad Everywhere."
Appendices A and B are not necessary to the understanding of the
invention, but are provided merely as additional examples.
[0036] In the present embodiment, the direct telephone dialing
scheme is implemented as a Browser Helper Object (BHO) of Internet
Explorer. Browser Helper Objects are in-process Component Object
Model (COM) components and can be applied to allow one to customize
Internet Explorer to create a specialized version of the browser.
For a detailed description of Browser Helper Objects, see Browser
Helper Objects: The Browser the Way You Want it by Dino Esposito,
January 1999, available at the following web site:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/techart/bho.htm. The article is
incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. In brief, BHOs
are component objects which Internet Explorer loads each time the
application is started. A BHO can be used to detect the browser's
typical events or install hooks to monitor messages and actions in
Internet Explorer.
[0037] A BHO, as a COM in-process server, is registered under a
certain registry's key so that Internet Explorer can look up and
load the browser help object during startup. The CIEHooker.rgs file
in Appendix A is a registration script file used to create registry
entries for implementing the direct telephone dialing scheme upon
installation of the CIEHooker.DLL file. The following Microsoft
Windows registry folders are created in one example:
TABLE-US-00001 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/
Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/`Browser Helper
Objects`/{16122F02-9713-11D3-9744-005004116944}
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/IEHooker.CIEHooker.1
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/IEHooker.CIEHooker.1/CLSID
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/IEHooker.CIEHooker
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/IEHooker.CIEHooker/CLSID
HKEY-CLASSES_ROOT/IEHooker.CIEHooker/CurVer
[0038] Example modifications to the Windows registry for
implementing the direct telephone dialing scheme of the present
invention in Internet Explorer is also shown in Appendix B. In the
present embodiment, a registry is also created to query the caller
to set and determine the operation status of the direct telephone
dialing feature. In operation, the registry provides a caller
interface where the caller may enable or disable the direct
telephone dialing feature.
[0039] The file CIEHooker.cpp in Appendix A is a source file
containing the overrides needed to hook the direct telephone
dialing feature into Internet Explorer as a browser helper object.
The direct telephone dialing BHO executes custom codes when certain
events from the browser take place. Here, the custom codes are
executed during the events DISPID_DOCUMENTCOMPLETE and
DISPID_ONQUIT. CIEHooker.h is a header file for CIEHooker.cpp.
[0040] In the present embodiment, the custom codes for the direct
telephone dialing feature are CheckNum.h (the header file) and
CheckNum.cpp which is a source file containing a program segment
for parsing the text in the document for telephone numbers and
modifying the telephone numbers into links to an internet telephone
service provider. In the present implementation, the links are
hyperlinks as will be described in more detail below.
[0041] In operation, when Internet Explorer completes downloading
of a web page document, typically written in HTML (step 404 in FIG.
4), the program segment embodiment in the CheckNum.cpp code is
executed to detect and modify text strings which constitute as
telephone numbers (steps 408 and 410 of FIG. 4). In CheckNum.cpp,
the telephone number formats described above are used to detect the
presence of telephone numbers in the character strings of the web
page document. After a telephone number is detected, the program of
CheckNum.cpp inserts three link strings to the telephone number to
convert the telephone number to a hyperlink. For example, the
original character string in the web page document may appear as
follows (note that the telephone number string is denoted by the
argument phonenumber):
[0042] <Font>phonenumber</Font>
[0043] In the present implementation the direct telephone dialing
scheme inserts three link strings into the character string above
as follows:
TABLE-US-00002 [Link String1] phonenumber [Link String2]
phonenumber [Link String3].
[0044] The three link strings are defined as follows:
TABLE-US-00003 Link String1 <FONT CLASS=`PHONE`
STYLE=`CURSOR=HAND;` COLOR=`#0000FF`
OnMouseOut=window.event.srcElement.style.color=`#0000FF`
OnMouseOver=window. event.srcElement.style.color=`#FF0000`
OnClick=window.open(`http://www.dialpad.com/cgi- bin/launch.
p1?Number= Link String2
`,`Dialpad`,`scrollbars=no,resizable=no,width=420,
height=370`)><U> Link String3 </U></Font>
[0045] In the present example, Link String1 contains commands for
controlling the rendering and style of the mouse on the caller's
host computer, such as the "OnMouseOut" and "OnMouseOver" commands.
These commands are of course optional. The "OnClick command" in
Link String1 modifies the character string into a link for
launching a server side script of an internet telephone service
provider. Here, the internet telephone service provider is
Dialpad.com. When the OnClick command is executed, the phonenumber
parameter appended to the end of Link String1 is passed with the
link to the server side script of the internet telephone service
provider (i.e., Dialpad.com). The server side script is linked to
an applet for activating the internet telephone service at the
provider's server. When the applet is launched, the service
provider dials the telephone number received via the phonenumber
parameter. Here, the server side script launches the Dialpad applet
for initiating voice communication over the internet using the
network described in aforementioned patent application Ser. No.
09/401,898, entitled Scalable Communications System, of Wongyu Cho
et al.
[0046] When the OnClick command is executed, the service provider
may provide a window on the computer display identifying the
telephone service provider and the status of the telephone call.
Link String2 contains standard window sizing parameters and
properties for defining the display window of the telephone service
provider. In the present example, Link String2 is used for the
Dialpad.com telephone service. Link String2 or similar command
strings may be optional for other telephone service providers. At
the end of Link String2, the phonenumber parameter is again
inserted for providing to the computer display the character string
which has been identified as a telephone number. In the present
implementation, the character string is being underlined by the
action of Link String3. Of course, other formatting functions can
be used. After the execution of the program CheckNum.cpp, the web
page is returned to Internet Explorer for display.
[0047] In the present embodiment, CheckNum.cpp includes a routine
for excluding modification of character strings which are already a
hypertext link. In HTML, an anchor element, A or a, is used to
denote a text string as a hypertext link. CheckNum.cpp checks for
the presence of the anchor element A and if a character string is
preceded by <A or <a, the string is skipped to avoid
modifying any existing hypertext link in the web page document.
[0048] The direct telephone dialing scheme can also be implemented
in Netscape Navigator. The Direct Dial software program can be
written as a Java script. Then, the Java script is installed and
activated using Script Signing. A description of Script Signing can
be found at the web site:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/partbook/instantj/scriptbasedsecurity.-
htm.
[0049] The direct telephone dialing scheme for internet telephony
has many advantages. First, a caller can dial telephone numbers
from any web pages and do not need to switch to an internet service
provider's web site to access the internet telephone service. This
is particularly useful when the caller is using internet yellow
pages to generate a list of telephone numbers to call. Second, the
caller can dial any of the telephone numbers identified by the
scheme without the need to record the telephone number and type in
the number onto a console of the service provider. Third, the
caller does not have to leave the web site from which he makes the
call and thus can inquire about information on the web site while
communicating with the destination telephone number.
[0050] The above detailed descriptions are provided to illustrate
specific embodiments of the present invention and are not intended
to be limiting. Numerous modifications and variations within the
scope of the present invention are possible. The present invention
is defined by the appended claims.
* * * * *
References