The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 17, 2007
Filed:
Oct. 09, 2001
Mark Watson, London, GB;
Mark Watson, London, GB;
Nortel Networks Limited, St. Laurent, Quebec, CA;
Abstract
The present invention is concerned with situations in which call signalling follows an indirect path between an originating party and a destination party. Such an indirect path can occur when multi-homed communications networks are used. For example, where a service is provided to an enterprise which has a private address domain and that service is hosted by a service provider whose equipment is located in a public address domain connected to the enterprise domain by two or more address translators. Previously, in this type of situation, resulting media paths also follow the indirect path of the call signalling. This is wasteful of network resources. The present invention enables a direct media path to be set-up. This is achieved by enabling network address translators between two address domains to retain information in call set-up messages about the relevant address in the previous address domain and also by adding network identifier information to call set up messages.