US 12,009,940 B2
Providing communication services using sets of I/O devices
Hans Hannu, Luleå (SE); Tommy Arngren, Södra Sunderby (SE); Peter Ökvist, Luleå (SE); and Stefan Wänstedt, Luleå (SE)
Assigned to Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ), Stockholm (SE)
Filed by Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ), Stockholm (SE)
Filed on Nov. 23, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/534,007.
Application 17/534,007 is a continuation of application No. 16/475,241, granted, now 11,212,130, previously published as PCT/EP2019/050870, filed on Jan. 15, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2022/0086019 A1, Mar. 17, 2022
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. H04L 12/28 (2006.01); G06F 9/455 (2018.01); G06F 13/20 (2006.01); H04L 65/1069 (2022.01); H04W 4/02 (2018.01)
CPC H04L 12/2807 (2013.01) [G06F 9/45508 (2013.01); G06F 13/20 (2013.01); H04L 12/2816 (2013.01); H04L 65/1069 (2013.01); H04W 4/023 (2013.01); H04L 2012/2849 (2013.01)] 23 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A user terminal emulation server for providing communication services using sets of input and/or output, I/O, user devices, the user terminal emulation server comprising at least one processor and at least one memory storing instructions executable by the at least one processor to perform operations comprising:
identifying a set of I/O user devices among the I/O user devices that are determined to be proximately located to a user by at least one of the I/O user devices among the I/O user devices detecting a user tag transported by the user, and are further determined, based on user interface (UI) capabilities for the set of I/O user devices, to satisfy a combined capability rule for being combinable to provide a combined UI for a communication service;
based on a communication request from a network entity for establishing the communication service between the user and a requesting user terminal, and further based on determining that the set of I/O user devices is proximately located to the user and satisfies the combined capability rule, performing:
providing communication sessions between the user terminal emulation server and the I/O user devices in the set and between the user terminal emulation server and the requesting user terminal via the network entity;
routing communication traffic that is received from at least one of the I/O user devices in the set toward the requesting user terminal; and
for a data type of communication traffic that is received from the requesting user terminal, selecting one of the I/O user devices from among the set of I/O user devices based on matching a characteristic of the data type to a UI capability of the one of the I/O user devices, and then routing the communication traffic of the data type toward the selected one of the I/O user devices; and
responsive to another communication request from the network entity for establishing another communication service between another user and another requesting user terminal, performing further operations to:
determine whether another set of I/O user devices among the I/O user devices is proximately located to the another user and available for use for the another communication service and is further determined, based on the UI capabilities of the another set of I/O user devices to satisfy the combined capability rule for being combinable to provide a combined UI for the another communication service; and
based on determining that no other set of I/O user devices is determined to satisfy the combined capability rule, available for use by the another communication service, and proximately located to the another user,
configure one of the I/O user devices in the set of I/O user devices that is proximately located to the another user but is currently being used by the user, to operate to provide a shared UI that is used by the user while the communication service is continuing to be provided to the user and that is further used by the another user while the another communication service is provided to the another user.