CROSS-MEDIA VOICE MAIL NOTIFICATION AND DELIVERY
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A method comprising:
- recording and storing one or more voice mail messages in a voice mailbox of a subscriber;
sending, to the subscriber, a text-based message including a voice mail retrieval address for each of the one or more stored voice mail messages notifying the subscriber of the one or more voice mails in the voice mailbox;
receiving a selection of a voice mail retrieval address included in the text-based message;
retrieving the voice mail message associated with the voice mail retrieval address as a function of the retrieval address; and
playing the voice mail message associated with the selected voice mail retrieval address.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
The subject mater herein relates to voice mail systems and, more particularly, cross-media voice mail notification and delivery. Various embodiments described herein provide systems, methods, software, and data structures that operate to, or facilitate, dispatching of voice mail notification messages to voice mailbox owners. In some embodiments, the notifications are sent to the voice mailbox owners in a text format, such as a short message service text message, email, or other text based service. These and other embodiments are described herein.
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Citations
26 Claims
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1. A method comprising:
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recording and storing one or more voice mail messages in a voice mailbox of a subscriber; sending, to the subscriber, a text-based message including a voice mail retrieval address for each of the one or more stored voice mail messages notifying the subscriber of the one or more voice mails in the voice mailbox; receiving a selection of a voice mail retrieval address included in the text-based message; retrieving the voice mail message associated with the voice mail retrieval address as a function of the retrieval address; and playing the voice mail message associated with the selected voice mail retrieval address. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A data structure for storing voice mail messages comprising:
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a plurality of voice mail inboxes stored in a memory, each voice mail inbox including an identifier and one or more associated telephone numbers; and recorded voice mail messages, each message including an association to a voice mail inbox identifier and a message retrieval address selected from a universe of message retrieval addresses stored in the memory. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10)
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11. A communication system comprising:
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a telephone network connection module to connect to one or more telephone networks; a text messaging gateway to connect to one or more networks capable of transporting text-based messages; a telephone call processing module operative to process telephone calls received via the telephone network connection module and to route telephone calls to a voice mail system; a database within which the voice mail system manipulates data including voice mail message header data and pointers to stored recorded voice mail messages; the voice mail system operatively couplable to the telephone network connection module, the telephone call processing module, and the text messaging gateway, the voice mail system operative to; store voice mailbox subscriber information including an association to one or more telephone numbers of a voice mailbox subscriber, at least one of the telephone numbers; record and store voice mail messages; and store voice mail message header data of recorded voice mail messages in the database from calls forwarded to the voice mail system by the telephone call processing module, each voice mail message including information identifying a sender of the voice mail message, a recipient subscriber of the voice mail message, and a retrieval address of the voice mail message. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A tangible computer-readable medium, with instructions encoded thereon, which when executed, cause a suitably configured computing system to:
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retrieve voice mailbox information of a subscriber voice mailbox from a database including voice mail system data to obtain data associated with messages in the subscriber voice mailbox; generate text of a text-based message, the text including at least a partial listing of messages in the subscriber voice mailbox, each listed message including a retrieval telephone number that when combined with an identifier of the voice mailbox subscriber provides a unique retrieval key; and dispatch the generated text in the form of a text-message to the voice mailbox subscriber. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20)
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21. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 21, wherein the request for the voice mailbox information is received in the form of a text-message.
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22. A method comprising:
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recording and storing one or more voice mail message in a voice mailbox of a subscriber; sending, to the subscriber, a text-based message including, for each of one or more stored voice mail messages; a voice mail retrieval address to retrieve the specific voice mail message, a link to send a reply text message to a sender of a specific voice mail message, and a link to send a voice mail reply to a received voice mail. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26)
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Specification