Method and apparatus for handling telephone calls
First Claim
1. An electronic method for handling telephone calls comprising:
- storing in a memory one or more telephone number templates, each template being as wide as a telephone number is long, each template including a mask identifying one or more telephone number positions within a telephone number field for comparison purposes, each mask capable of identifying one or more telephone number positions within a telephone number field whether such positions are at the beginning, in the middle or at the end thereof, each template further including a target identifying one or more telephone number tokens within a telephone number field for comparison purposes;
monitoring a telephone line for a call placed thereon;
identifying at least one of the origin and the destination telephone number and storing one or more tokens of such identified telephone number in a memory;
comparing the stored tokens of the identified telephone number with the corresponding target tokens within the identified positions of at least one of the one or more stored templates; and
processing the call based upon the result of said comparing.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
An electronic method and apparatus for handling telephone calls is described. The method includes storing in a memory a telephone number template. The template preferably is as wide as a telephone number is long and identifies one or more telephone number digits by the digit positions within a telephone number field for comparison purposes. The method further includes monitoring a telephone line for a call placed thereon, identifying at least one of the origin and the destination telephone number and storing one or more digits of such identified telephone number in a memory. The method further includes comparing the stored digits of the identified telephone number with the corresponding digits of the stored template. Finally, the method includes processing the call based upon the result of said comparing. Such processing may include any one or more of logging, filtering, blocking, ignoring, rerouting, forwarding, distinctive-ringing and answering the call. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, the template includes a first-level mask-identifying digit position criterion that identifies dialing tokens of interest and a second-level target-identifying digit content criterion that attempts to pattern match those tokens of interest with corresponding tokens of stored telephone numbers.
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Citations
22 Claims
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1. An electronic method for handling telephone calls comprising:
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storing in a memory one or more telephone number templates, each template being as wide as a telephone number is long, each template including a mask identifying one or more telephone number positions within a telephone number field for comparison purposes, each mask capable of identifying one or more telephone number positions within a telephone number field whether such positions are at the beginning, in the middle or at the end thereof, each template further including a target identifying one or more telephone number tokens within a telephone number field for comparison purposes;
monitoring a telephone line for a call placed thereon;
identifying at least one of the origin and the destination telephone number and storing one or more tokens of such identified telephone number in a memory;
comparing the stored tokens of the identified telephone number with the corresponding target tokens within the identified positions of at least one of the one or more stored templates; and
processing the call based upon the result of said comparing. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. An automatic telephone call handling method comprising:
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monitoring a telephone line identifiable to an origin telephone number for entry by a caller of a destination telephone number;
comparing at least one of the origin and destination telephone numbers with an address template stored in a memory, the address template being a two-level logic device including a mask identifying one or more digit positions of significance and a-target identifying a telephone number of significance, each mask capable of identifying one or more digit positions of significance whether such positions are at the beginning, in the middle or at the end thereof;
processing the call based upon the result of said comparing, said processing including one of blocking, filtering, routing, forwarding, distinctive-ringing and answering the call; and
logging at least one of the origin and destination telephone numbers in a memory, said logging being performed selectively based upon the result of said comparing. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. Telephone call-handling apparatus comprising:
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a telephone line monitor for determining at least one of a source and destination telephone number for a telephone call;
a telephone number storage device for storing the at least one of the source and destination telephone number;
a template storage device for pattern matching with the at least one stored telephone number, said template including a mask for defining one or more sub-fields of interest in the stored telephone number, each mask capable of identifying one or more sub-fields of interest whether such sub-fields are positioned at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the stored telephone number, said template furthers including a target for comparing said one or more sub-fields of interest in the target with corresponding sub-fields of the stored telephone number; and
a call processor coupled with said template storage device for selectively processing the telephone call based upon the result of such comparison. - View Dependent Claims (19)
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20. A computer-readable medium containing a program for handling telephone calls, the program comprising:
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instructions for storing in a memory one or more telephone number templates, each template being as wide as a telephone number is long, each template including a mask identifying one or more telephone number positions within a telephone number field for comparison purposes, each mask capable of identifying one or more telephone number positions within a telephone number field whether such positions are at the beginning, in the middle or at the end thereof, each template further including a target identifying one or more telephone number digits within a telephone number field for comparison purposes;
instructions for monitoring a telephone line for a call placed thereon;
instructions for identifying at least one of the origin and the destination telephone number and storing one or more digits of such identified telephone number in a memory;
instructions for comparing the stored digits of the identified telephone number with the corresponding target digits within the identified positions of at least one of the one or more stored templates; and
instructions for processing the call based upon the result of said comparing.
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21. A method of screening telephone calls comprising:
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monitoring a telephone call and storing in memory an entire dialing sequence of ordered dial tokens as a dial token field;
classifying the telephone call by analyzing only those dial token sub-fields within the stored dial token field that meet predefined position and content criteria, said classifying including logically combining a stored mask/target pair thereby to mask don'"'"'t care digits within a target telephone number and comparing the remaining complement of digits to corresponding digits of the dial token field, wherein a mask of each mask/target pair is capable of identifying one or more dial token sub-fields within the stored dial token field whether such positions are at the beginning, in the middle or at the end thereof; and
selectively processing the telephone call based upon said classifying, wherein said processing includes one of blocking, filtering, routing, forwarding, distinctive-ringing and answering the call. - View Dependent Claims (22)
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Specification