SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ANNOUNCING AND ROUTING INCOMING TELEPHONE CALLS USING A DISTRIBUTED VOICE APPLICATION EXECUTION SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

• US 20100158215A1
• Filed: 03/04/2010
• Published: 06/24/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/01/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Xtone Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Xtone Incorporated
• Inventors: DHAWAN, Vishal, Price, Timothy M., Sindhwani, Manoj
• Granted Patent: US 9,253,301 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/88.160
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/006 Call diverting means
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/2478 Telephone terminals specially adapted for non-voice services, e.g. email, internet access centralized arrangements where telephones services are combined H04M7/0024; for recording text messages H04M3/5322; for accessing Internet H04M3/4938
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/2535 adapted for voice communication over an Internet Protocol [IP] network Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network equipment and services H04M7/006; implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP] H04L69/16
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/578 associated with a synthesized vocal announcement
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/74 with voice recognition means
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/436 Arrangements for screening incoming calls , i.e. evaluating the characteristics of a call before deciding whether to answer it based on the calling party profile H04M3/42059; based on location H04M3/42348; based on presence H04M3/42365; diversion H04M3/54

Abstract

A system and method for announcing and handling incoming telephone calls utilizes a distributed processing architecture. The distributed processing architecture makes use of local devices that can be located at various different locations where the user is often located. For instance, local devices could be at a user'"'"'s home, a user'"'"'s office and/or on a user'"'"'s mobile device. The local devices are linked such than when there is an incoming telephone call directed to any one of multiple telephone numbers associated with the user, an announcement of the incoming call is provided at all of the user'"'"'s locations. The user is also able to specify how the incoming call is to be handled on a call-by-call basis. The user may also be able to specify default call handling instructions so that an incoming telephone call directed to one of the user'"'"'s telephone numbers is received by a device normally associated with a different one of the user'"'"'s telephone numbers. The system allows the user to selectively forward incoming telephone calls to another specified number on a call-by-call basis.

Claims

1. A method of announcing and handling an incoming telephone call, comprising:

announcing an incoming telephone call directed to one of multiple telephone numbers associated with a user at multiple locations;

receiving a call handling instruction from the user at one of the multiple locations; and

handling the call in accordance with the user'"'"'s instructions.