IP Library Granted Patent US 12,432,079
Granted Patent B2
US 12,432,079 · App. 18/183,053 · Granted Sep 30, 2025

Participant sorting in video conferencing

Inventors: Pei Hsuan Li (Spring, TX); Rose Hedderman (Spring, TX); Sarah Shiraz (Spring, TX); Yu Chun Huang (Spring, TX)
Assignee: Hewlet-Packard Development Company, L.P.
H04L12/1818G06V10/82G06V40/176
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 12,432,079
App. No.
18/183,053
Granted
Sep 30, 2025
Kind
B2
Abstract

An example non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions executable by a processing resource of a computing device to cause the computing device to: receive a video feed of a participant in a video conference; identify the participants within the video feed; determine a probability that a characteristic is being experienced by the participant; determine a relevancy score of the participant based on the probability that the characteristic is being experienced by the participant; and display the participant relative to other participants in the video conference based on the relevancy score.

Claims (37)

1. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions executable by a processing resource of a computing device to cause the computing device to:

receive a video feed of a participant in a video conference;

identify the participant within the video feed;

determine a probability that a characteristic is being experienced by the participant;

determine, for each frame of the video feed, a frame relevancy score of the participant based on the probability that the characteristic is being experienced by the participant;

determine an average relevancy score for the participant based on a combination of the probability that the characteristic is being experienced by the participant, a sorting criterion, and a weighted average of the frame relevancy scores over a predetermined interval; and

display the participant relative to other participants in the video conference based on the average relevancy score.

2. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the instructions further cause the computing device to identify the participant using a multi-cascaded convolutional neural network (MTCNN).

3. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the instructions further cause the computing device to determine the probability using a convolutional neural network (CNN).

4. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the characteristic is selected from the group consisting of: an emotion and a level of engagement.

5. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the characteristic is an emotion corresponding to a state of boredom, tiredness, excitement, interest, anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, or apathy, of the participant.

6. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the instructions cause the computing device to determine the probability using facial emotional analysis.

7. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the instructions cause the computing device to determine the probability using hand gesture recognition.

8. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the instructions further cause the computing device to determine the probability using head motion recognition.

9. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the sorting criterion corresponds to a similar characteristic experienced by the other participants in the video conference.

10. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions executable by a processing resource of a computing device to cause the computing device to:

receive a probability that a characteristic is being experienced by a participant present in a video feed of a video conference;

receive a sorting criterion associated with the characteristic;

determine, for each frame of the video feed, a frame relevancy score of the participant using the probability and the sorting criterion;

determine an average relevancy score for the participant based on the probability that the characteristic is being expressed by the participant, the sorting criterion, and the a weighted average of the frame relevancy scores over a predetermined interval;

rank the participant relative to other participants in the video conference based on the relevancy score; and

display the video feed of the participant relative to the other participants in the video conference based on the average relevancy score.

11. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein the characteristic is selected from the group consisting of: an emotion and a level of engagement.

12. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein the characteristic is an emotion corresponding to a state of boredom, tiredness, excitement, interest, anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, or apathy, of the participant.

13. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions executable by a processing resource of a computing device to cause the computing device to:

receive a video feed for each of a set of participants in a video conference;

determine probabilities of characteristics being experienced by the set of participants in the video conference, wherein a distinct probability is determined for each participant of the set of participants;

determine a list of characteristics based on the probabilities and a threshold value;

determine a relevancy score for each of the set of participants in the video conference based on the probabilities and the threshold value;

sort the list of characteristics and the set of participants based on the probabilities and the relevancy scores; and

display a set of characteristics and the set of participants based on the sorted list of characteristics.

14. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the characteristic is selected from the group consisting of: an emotion and a level of engagement.

15. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the characteristic is an emotion corresponding to a state of boredom, tiredness, excitement, interest, anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, or apathy, of a participant.

16. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the instructions further cause the computing device to receive a selection of a characteristic from the set of characteristics.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 16 , wherein the instructions further cause the computing device to display the set of participants in an order based upon the selection.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the instructions further cause the computing device to display a characteristic of the sorted list corresponding to a characteristic most likely being experienced by the largest number of participants in the video conference.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the instructions further cause the computing device to display a characteristic occurring most frequently in the sorted list.

Assignments (1)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Mar 14, 2023
From: LI, PEI HSUAN; HEDDERMAN, ROSE; SHIRAZ, SARAH; HUANG, YU CHUN
To: HEWLETT-PACKARD DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P.
Reel/Frame 062976/0680 →
Continuity (1)
Related Publication 20240313990A1 · Sep 19, 2024
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