Method and Apparatus for integrated telephone and internet services
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for providing integrated telephony and Internet services is described. An embodiment of the present invention comprises passively collecting incoming and/or outgoing call information from communications links communicatively coupled to a first party. The call information is extracted and customer information, such as demographic information, is retrieved. The customer information may be, for example, retrieved from a data provider or may have been previously collected or gathered. Thereafter, reports, charts, graphs, maps, and the like may be made available. In an embodiment, the reports, charts, graphs, maps, and the like are made available via a network such as the Internet.
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Citations
142 Claims
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1-114. -114. (canceled)
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115. A method of providing customer information to a company, the method comprising the steps of:
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(a) automatically extracting a first caller identifier from an incoming call wherein the step of automatically extracting is performed by passively monitoring a plurality of incoming telecommunications links to the company; (b) comparing the first caller identifier with a list of previously received caller identifiers from a call database; (c) retrieving customer information from a data provider wherein the customer information corresponds to the first caller identifier, when the first caller identifier does not match a caller identifier included in the list of previously received caller identifiers; (d) automatically extracting call information from the incoming call; (e) storing the call information and the customer information in a call record in the call database wherein the call record corresponds to the first caller identifier; (f) performing steps (a)-(e) a plurality of times for a plurality of callers to generate a plurality of call records in the call database; and (g) generating a report based on the call information and the customer information stored in the plurality of call records in the call database. - View Dependent Claims (116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128)
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129. An apparatus to provide call information to a company, the apparatus comprising:
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a telephone network connector configured to communicatively couple to a communications link, the communications link being communicatively coupled to a telephone network wherein the telephone network connector is configured to passively monitor traffic on the communications link; an Internet connector configured for providing Internet access; and a call processor configured to; automatically extract caller information from an incoming call on the communications link, the caller information including a first caller identifier, wherein the step of automatically extracting is performed by passively monitoring the plurality of incoming telecommunications links to the company; retrieve customer information corresponding to the first caller identifier from a call database; automatically extract call information from the incoming call; store the call information and the customer information in a call record in the call database wherein the call record corresponds to the first caller identifier; generate a report based on the plurality of call records in the call database; and provide access to the report on the Internet via the Internet connector. - View Dependent Claims (130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142)
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Specification