World wide web voice mail system
First Claim
1. A method for accessing messages stored in a voice mail system over the Internet World Wide Web, said method including the steps of:
- receiving at a WWW server a request specifying a URL, said WWW server being separate from said voice mail system but having a link thereto over a communications network, said client request being sent to the WWW server from a WWW client terminal;
analysing the URL included in said client request to determine if said URL corresponds to a message client application, and if so, launching said message client application;
passing at least one parameter derived from said URL to the message client application;
transmitting a network request over said communications network by the message client application to a message server program running on said voice mail system;
responsive to said network request retrieving information stored in the voice mail system by the message server program, said information being dependent upon said at least one parameter and relating to the stored voice mail messages;
returning said information from the message server program to the message client application;
formatting the information by the message client application for presentation by a WWW browser;
and returning said formatted information to the WWW client terminal from the WWW server.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Using the Internet World Wide Web (WWW) network 320, a WWW Client 310 can communicate with a WWW Server 330 to request access to a user'"'"'s voice mail. In order to satisfy this request, the user enters their voice mail mailbox number, and activates an appropriate hyperlink. The WWW Server then launches an application, MSG Client 350, which in turn communicates with an application, MSG Server 370, that runs in conjunction with the voice mail system 380, 385, 390. In response to an initial message from the MSG Client, the MSG Server returns information about all voice mail messages within the specified mailbox, which are displayed at the WWW Client. This display includes a hyperlink to each message in the mailbox. Thus a user can select a message from within the mailbox by activating this hyperlink, which prompts the WWW Server to again launch MSG Client. This in turn sends a second message to MSG Server, which responds by returning the actual audio data for the selected message to the MSG Client, which is forwarded onto the WWW Client via the WWW Server. The WWW Client then plays out the audio data, allowing the user to hear his or her selected voice mail message.
168 Citations
8 Claims
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1. A method for accessing messages stored in a voice mail system over the Internet World Wide Web, said method including the steps of:
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receiving at a WWW server a request specifying a URL, said WWW server being separate from said voice mail system but having a link thereto over a communications network, said client request being sent to the WWW server from a WWW client terminal;
analysing the URL included in said client request to determine if said URL corresponds to a message client application, and if so, launching said message client application;
passing at least one parameter derived from said URL to the message client application;
transmitting a network request over said communications network by the message client application to a message server program running on said voice mail system;
responsive to said network request retrieving information stored in the voice mail system by the message server program, said information being dependent upon said at least one parameter and relating to the stored voice mail messages;
returning said information from the message server program to the message client application;
formatting the information by the message client application for presentation by a WWW browser;
and returning said formatted information to the WWW client terminal from the WWW server. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
maintaining information about the stored voice mail messages in a directory;
and interacting with said directory means to obtain said information concerning the stored voice mail messages.
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3. The method of claim 1, wherein each user has a mailbox for storing his or her voice mail messages, and wherein said request received over said WWW identifies a particular mailbox, and the information retrieved and returned to the WWW client terminal relates to the voice mail messages in that mailbox.
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4. The method of claim 3, wherein the information retrieved and returned to the WWW client terminal relating to the voice mail messages in a particular mailbox includes information on the date and time of receipt of each message in the mail box.
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5. The method of claim 1, further including, responsive to a request received over said WWW identifying a particular stored message, the steps of:
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retrieving audio data corresponding to said particular stored message;
and returning said audio data to the WWW client terminal.
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6. The method of claim 1, further including the steps of:
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obtaining a password from the user;
verifying the password before providing the user with information about the stored voice messages; and
writing the password back to the user in concealed form with said information about the stored voice messages, wherein the password in concealed form is automatically included in further requests from the user to enable password verification of said further requests, without the user explicitly having to re-enter the password.
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7. An Internet voice mail system for providing access to stored messages over the World Wide Web (WWW), said system including:
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a WWW server for receiving a request from a WWW client terminal to access said stored messages, said request specifying a URL;
a storage system for storing voice mail messages and connected to the WWW server via a communications link;
program means running on the WWW server responsive to the particular URL specified in said request for launching a message client program, said message client program acting to forward said request to the storage system and to format and forward a response from the storage system back to the WWW client terminal;
a message server program running on said storage system for receiving said request, for retrieving information at the storage system relating to the stored voice mail messages, said information being dependent on said URL, and for returning a response including said information to the message client program;
wherein the retrieved information is returned to the WWW client terminal via said message server, said message client, and the WWW server.
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8. An Internet voice mail system for providing access to stored messages over the World Wide Web (WWW), said system including:
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a plurality of WWW servers for receiving requests from WWW client terminals to access said stored messages, each request specifying a URL;
a storage system for storing voice mail messages and connected to the WWW servers;
program means running on each WWW server responsive to the particular URL specified in a request for launching a message client program, said message client program acting to forward the request to the storage system and to format and forward a response from the storage system back to the WWW client terminal;
a message server program running on said storage system for receiving said requests, for retrieving information at the storage system relating to the stored voice mail messages, said information being dependent on said URL, and for returning a response including said information to the message client program;
wherein the retrieved information is returned to the WWW client terminal via said message server and the relevant message client and WWW server.
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Specification