Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
1. A method of alerting a calling party in a Voice over IP (VoIP) call that a called party might be unable to hear ring tones, the method comprising: at a called party location, in response to the VoIP call initiated by the calling party arriving on a computer device of the called party via an IP connection, sampling, by the computer device of the called party, an audible level of ring tones indicating an incoming VoIP call monitored by a microphone associated with a VoIP computer application on the computer device of the called party, and responsive to the audible level of the ring tones indicating the incoming VoIP call monitored by the microphone being below a minimum threshold, transmitting, by the computer device of the called party, a message to the calling party via any available connection that the called party might be unable to hear the ring tones indicating the incoming VoIP call.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: sampling, by the computer device of the called party, an audio level of the ring tones indicating the incoming VoIP call monitored by the microphone, comparing, by the computer device of the called party, the audio level of the ring tones indicating the incoming VoIP call monitored by the microphone to the minimum threshold, and responsive to the audio level of the ring tones indicating the incoming VoIP call monitored by the microphone being below the minimum threshold, transmitting, by the computer device of the called party, a noisy environment message to the calling party over the available connection.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the available connection is the IP connection.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the available connection is an email connection.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the available connection is an instant messaging connection.
6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: determining, by the computer device of the called party, whether the called party has enabled a privacy flag, and enabling, by the computer device of the called party, the microphone responsive to the privacy flag not being enabled.
7. A computer program product having a non-transitory computer readable storage medium for controlling a computer to alert a calling party in Voice over IP (VoIP) call that a called party might be unable to hear ring tones, the non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising computer instructions which, when executed by the computer, cause the computer to: responsive to the VoIP call initiated by the calling party arriving on the computer of the called party via an IP connection, sample an audible level of ring tones indicating an incoming VoIP call monitored by a microphone associated with VoIP computer application on the computer of the called party, and responsive to an audible level of the ring tones indicating the incoming VoIP call monitored by the microphone being below a minimum threshold, transmit a message to the calling party via any available connection that the called party might be unable to hear the ring tones.
8. The computer program product of claim 7 , wherein the computer instructions further cause the computer to: sample an audio level of the ring tones indicating the incoming VoIP call monitored by the microphone, compare the audio level of the ring tones indicating the incoming VoIP call monitored by the microphone to the minimum threshold, and responsive to the audio level of the ring tones indicating the incoming VoIP call monitored by the microphone being below the minimum threshold, transmit a noisy environment message to the calling party over the available connection.
9. The computer program product of 7 , wherein the available connection is the IP connection.
10. The computer program product of claim 7 , wherein the available connection is an email connection.
11. The computer program product of claim 7 , wherein the available connection is an instant messaging connection.
12. The computer program product of claim 7 , wherein the program instructions are stored in a data processing system, and wherein the instructions are downloaded over a network from a remote data processing system.
13. The computer program product of claim 7 , wherein the program instructions are stored in a server data processing system, and wherein the instructions are downloaded over a network to a remote data processing system for use in a computer readable storage medium with the remote system.
14. The computer program product of claim 7 , wherein the computer instructions further cause the computer to: determine whether the called party has enabled a privacy flag, and enable the microphone responsive to the privacy flag not being enabled.
15. A system for alerting a calling party in a Voice over IP (VoIP) call that a called party might be unable to hear ring-tones, comprising: a processor; and a memory coupled to the processor, wherein the memory comprises instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: responsive to the VoIP call initiated by the calling party arriving on the computer of the called party via an IP connection, sample an audible level of ring tones indicating an incoming VoIP call monitored by a microphone associated with a VoIP computer application on the computer of the called party, and responsive to an audible level of the ring tones indicating the incoming VoIP call monitored by the microphone being below minimum threshold, transmit a message to the calling party via any available connection that the called party might be unable to hear the ring tones.
16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the instructions further cause the processor to: sample an audio level of the ring tones indicating the incoming VoIP call monitored by the microphone, compare the audio level of the ring tones indicating the incoming VoIP call monitored by the microphone to the minimum threshold, and responsive to the audio level of the ring tones indicating the incoming VoIP call monitored by microphone being below the minimum threshold, transmit a noisy environment message to the calling party over the available connection.
17. The system of claim 15 , wherein the available connection is the IP connection.
18. The system of claim 15 wherein the available connection is an email connection.
19. The system of claim 15 , wherein the available connection is an instant messaging connection.
20. The system of claim 15 , wherein the instructions further cause the processor to: determine whether the called party has enabled a privacy flag, and enable the microphone responsive to the privacy flag not being enabled.
Unknown
February 23, 2016
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