Fax messaging for new users

• US 20070036141A1
• Filed: 08/09/2005
• Published: 02/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/09/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Advanced Messaging Technologies, Inc. (J2 Global, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: J2 Global, Inc.
• Inventors: Zucker, Nehemia
• Granted Patent: US 7,990,950 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00209 Transmitting or receiving image data, e.g. facsimile data, via a computer, e.g. using e-mail, a computer network, the internet, I-fax
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/0022 involving facsimile protocols or a combination of facsimile protocols and computer data transmission protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/34 for coin-freed systems ; Pay systems

Abstract

Send and receive services are operated that send and receive fax messages, respectively, via fax protocols. Each new customer is offered a predetermined amount of the receive service, and a more limited amount of the send service, both free of charge to the customer, as part of a group of services that includes Internet access, Web services, or Internet telephony. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

operating send and receive services that send and receive fax messages, respectively, via fax protocols; and

offering to each of a plurality of new customers a predetermined amount of the receive service and a more limited amount of the send service, both free of charge to the customer, as part of a group of services that includes one of Internet access, Web, and Internet telephony.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein (1) the send and receive services and (2) said one of Internet access, Web, and Internet telephony services, are administered by different entities.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein operating the send service comprises the machine-implemented operations of:

receiving a message from a customer of the send service, the message having been sent by the customer from an external packet network and received in an internal packet network;

verifying with the customer'"'"'s account that there is permission to use the send service; and

converting the received message into a fax protocol format and transmitting the converted message to its destination.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein operating the receive service comprises receiving a fax message that is addressed to a customer of the receive service via a fax protocol, verifying with the customer'"'"'s account that there is permission to use the receive service, and converting the received fax message into an electronic messaging protocol format used for messaging in packet data networks that are connected by routers.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein the received message is an attachment to an email message that has been addressed to a domain name of an operator of the send service, in the form of ### . . . ###@ domain_name where ### . . . ### is a fax number of the destination.

6. The method of claim 3 wherein verifying for permission to use the send service comprises using an email address of the customer to look up a status of the customer'"'"'s account.

7. The method of claim 3 wherein verifying for permission to use the receive service comprises using a DID number of the customer to look up a status of the customer'"'"'s account.

8. The method of claim 2 wherein said offering is on a Web site that is administered on behalf of an owner of said one of Internet access, Web, and Internet telephony services.

9. The method of claim 2 wherein the offering is via an email marketing campaign of a provider of said one of Internet access, Web services, and Internet telephony.

10. A machine-implemented method of operating a fax processor, comprising:

transmitting a fax message on behalf of a user, in response to receiving within an internal packet data network a request from the user from an external packet data network;

receiving a fax message on behalf of the user into the internal packet data network, and enabling the user to view the received fax message from the external packet data network; and

initializing a data structure that is associated with a new user, within the internal packet data network, to indicate that a predetermined number of fax pages can be transmitted, and a greater number can be received, for the new user at no charge to the new user where the new user is also a new user of one of an Internet access service, a Web service, and an Internet telephony service.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

prior to transmitting the fax message, verifying within the internal packet data network that the user has permission to transmit faxes using the fax processor and then converting an outbound message from the user into a fax protocol format.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the outbound message is an attachment to an email message that has been addressed to a domain name of the fax processor, in the form of ### . . . ###@ domain_name where ### . . . ### is a fax number of a destination of the transmitted fax message in a fax protocol network.

13. The method of claim 10 wherein the fax processor and said one of an Internet access service, a Web service, and an Internet telephony service are administered by different entities.

14. The method of claim 10 wherein the fax message is received via an incoming call to a telephone number assigned only to the user and not other users of the fax processor.

15. The method of claim 10 wherein the request is received via an email message that is addressed to an email address having the format ### . . . ###@ domain_name where . . . ### is a telephone number of a destination of the fax machine.