Methods and apparatus for accessing and processing multimedia messages stored in a unified multimedia mailbox
First Claim
1. A multimedia mailbox system, comprising:
- a) a message store for storing multimedia messages; and
b) a plurality of data converters for converting messages in one medium to messages in another medium.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The invention provides the user of a unified messaging mailbox with efficient, intelligent, media and device sensitive methods and apparatus to access and process (e.g., read, listen, forward, and search) messages. The invention introduces media conversion capabilities to selectively treat multimedia messages and message attachments so that they can be efficiently handled by mobile devices like PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), pagers, or phone devices (with or without a text display feature). Furthermore, the invention introduces message content analysis capabilities that will recognize linguistic relationships between messages regardless of the media type. The invention also describes the ability to present these linguistic relationships along with the standard messaging relationships (Message arrival time, subject, sender, etc.). Still further, the invention introduces a message referencing option that allows simpler message selection from certain devices.
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Citations
16 Claims
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1. A multimedia mailbox system, comprising:
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a) a message store for storing multimedia messages; and
b) a plurality of data converters for converting messages in one medium to messages in another medium. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. A multimedia mailbox system, comprising:
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a) a message store for storing multimedia messages; and
b) means for linguistically based searching of multiple message types and for linguistically relating multiple messages of different type. - View Dependent Claims (6)
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7. A multimedia mailbox system, comprising:
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a) a message store for storing multimedia messages;
b) a plurality of data converters for converting messages in one medium to messages in another medium;
c) means for linguistically based searching of multiple message types and for linguistically relating multiple messages of different type and d) means for assigning a reference number to each message. - View Dependent Claims (8)
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9. A method for managing a multimedia mailbox, comprising the steps of:
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a) storing messages of different types in a single mailbox; and
b) automatically converting messages from one medium to another. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 14, 16)
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13. A method for managing a multimedia mailbox, comprising the steps of:
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a) storing messages of different types in a single mailbox; and
b) linguistically searching multiple message types and linguistically relating multiple messages of different type.
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15. A method for managing a multimedia mailbox, comprising the steps of:
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a) storing messages of different types in a single mailbox;
b) automatically converting messages from one medium to another;
c) linguistically searching multiple message types and linguistically relating multiple messages of different type; and
d) assigning a reference number to each message. converting includes at least two selected from the group consisting of converting text to speech, converting speech to text, and converting fax to text.
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Specification