Dynamically Organizing Visual Voicemail

• US 20110098021A1
• Filed: 10/28/2009
• Published: 04/28/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/28/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Mobility II LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Mobility II LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Shaw, Venson M., Evora, Robert Z.
• Granted Patent: US 9,866,675 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/412.2
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72433 for voice messaging, e.g. dictaphones for answering incoming calls H04M1/64
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72457 according to geographic location
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/38 Displays
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/253 where a visual mode is used instead of a voice mode
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2207/18 wireless networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/53333 Message receiving aspects

Abstract

Visual voicemail is dynamically organized according to detected criteria. Voicemail may be automatically associated with a category, priority, or other attribute. The attributes may be assigned based on user-configured associations with particular senders, the detection of user-defined words or phrases within the voicemail, or on other attributes such as the voicemail sender'"'"'s relative location to the voicemail recipient. Voicemail may be visually identified as being associated with one or more attributes, and may be organized and presented to a user based on the associated attributes. Actions may be performed and the voicemail may be manipulated based on the attributes.

Claims

1. A wireless communications device configured to dynamically organize voicemail, the wireless communications device comprising:

a transceiver portion configured to;

receive a notification of an available voicemail; and

a processing portion configured to;

determine a first attribute of the available voicemail based on the notification,

generate a visual voicemail entry based on the first attribute,

determine a first position of the visual voicemail entry among a plurality of visual voicemail entries based on the first attribute, and

generate a first view comprising the visual voicemail entry.

2. The wireless communications device of claim 1, the processing portion further configured to determine whether the available voicemail comprises a keyword.

3. The wireless communications device of claim 2, the processing portion further configured to detect an indicator of the keyword based on the notification.

4. The wireless communications device of claim 2, wherein the processing portion further configured to evaluate a transcribed portion of the available voicemail to determine whether the keyword is present in the transcribed portion.

5. The wireless communications device of claim 4, the notification further comprising an audio portion of the available voicemail;

and

the processing portion further configured to transcribe at least a portion of the audio portion of the available voicemail to generate the transcribed portion of the available voicemail.

6. The wireless communications device of claim 4, wherein the notification further comprises the transcribed portion of the available voicemail.

7. The wireless communications device of claim 1, the processing portion further configured to determine a priority associated with the voicemail.

8. The wireless communications device of claim 7, the processing portion further configured to generate a visual indicator of the priority associated with the voicemail.

9. The wireless communications device of claim 7, the processing portion further configured to:

determine the first position of the visual voicemail entry among the plurality of visual voicemail entries based on the priority associated with the voicemail; and

generate a list comprising the visual voicemail entry and the plurality of visual voicemail entries sorted by priority.

10. The wireless communications device of claim 1, the processing portion further configured to determine a category associated with the voicemail.

11. The wireless communications device of claim 10, the processing portion further configured to generate a visual indicator of the category associated with the voicemail.

12. The wireless communications device of claim 10, the processing portion further configured to:

determine the first position of the visual voicemail entry among the plurality of visual voicemail entries based on the category associated with the voicemail; and

generate a list comprising the visual voicemail entry and a subset of the plurality of visual voicemail entries, wherein the subset of the plurality of visual voicemail entries is associated with the category associated with the voicemail.

13. A method of generating a voicemail, the method comprising:

receiving and storing a voice message portion of a voicemail from a sender on a network device;

generating a user interface soliciting the sender for a selection of a voicemail attribute;

receiving and storing the voicemail attribute on the network device;

generating a notification of the voicemail comprising an indicator associated with the voicemail attribute; and

transmitting the notification to a recipient device.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising receiving and storing at least one recipient-defined voicemail attribute from a recipient on the network device, wherein generating the user interface soliciting the sender for a selection of the voicemail attribute comprises generating the user interface soliciting the sender for the selection of the voicemail attribute from among the at least one recipient-defined voicemail attribute.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising determining whether a keyword is present within the voice message portion of the voicemail, wherein generating the notification of the voicemail comprising the indicator associated with the voicemail attribute comprises generating the notification of the voicemail comprising an indicator that the keyword is present within the voice message portion of the voicemail.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein determining whether a keyword is present within the voice message portion of the voicemail comprises transcribing the voice message portion of the voicemail to generate a transcription and determining whether the keyword is present within the transcription.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising determining a first position of the voicemail among a plurality of voicemail based on the voicemail attribute.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein generating the notification of the voicemail comprising the indicator associated with the voicemail attribute comprises generating the notification of the voicemail comprising an indicator of the first position of the voicemail among the plurality of voicemail.

19. The method of claim 13, further comprising determining a location attribute associated with the sender, wherein generating the notification of the voicemail comprising the indicator associated with the voicemail attribute comprises generating the notification of the voicemail comprising the location attribute.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein determining a location attribute comprises determining a distance between the sender and the recipient device.