Call announcement service
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A telephone call announcement system comprising:
- means for answering a phone call initiated by a calling party;
means for announcing a greeting to the calling party;
means for obtaining information about the calling party from a database;
means for announcing receipt of the call from the calling party to the called party, including means for announcing an identity of the calling party;
means for providing call answering options to called party and for receiving call answering instructions from the called party; and
means for completing the phone call according to the call answering instructions received from the called party.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method and operation for a call announcement service which answers incoming phone calls. The system retrieves identifying information about the calling party and provides that information to the called party. The called party can choose from several options for answering the call, such as completing the call with the calling party, sending the calling party to voice mail or terminating the call. In an alternative embodiment, the calling party can be notified that they have dialed a cellular phone customer, and can be provided the option of accepting the called party'"'"'s cellular phone charges.
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Citations
16 Claims
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1. A telephone call announcement system comprising:
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means for answering a phone call initiated by a calling party;
means for announcing a greeting to the calling party;
means for obtaining information about the calling party from a database;
means for announcing receipt of the call from the calling party to the called party, including means for announcing an identity of the calling party;
means for providing call answering options to called party and for receiving call answering instructions from the called party; and
means for completing the phone call according to the call answering instructions received from the called party. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method of answering a telephone call from a calling party to a called party, said method comprising the steps of:
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using a call answering system to answer the telephone call from the calling party;
obtaining information about the calling party from a database, the information including identity of the calling party;
announcing the telephone call to the called party, including the identity of the calling party;
providing call answering options to the called party;
receiving call answering instructions from the called party; and
completing the telephone call according to the call answering instructions received from the called party. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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Specification