Intelligent voicemail message waiting system and method

• US 7,010,100 B1
• Filed: 12/22/2003
• Issued: 03/07/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 07/29/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Garg, Amit, Patil, Rajeev B., Tuttle, Jeffrey L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Tsang, Fan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hashem, Lisa
• Application Number:
  US10/743,987
• Time in Patent Office: 806 Days
• Field of Search: 379/88.13, 379/156, 379/201.01
• US Class Current: 379/88.12
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/64 Automatic arrangements for answering calls; Automatic arrangements for recording messages for absent subscribers; Arrangements for recording conversations centralised dictation systems H04M11/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/654 Telephone line monitoring circuits therefor, e.g. ring detectors
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/253 where a visual mode is used instead of a voice mode
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2242/22 Automatic class or number identification arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42042 Notifying the called party of information on the calling party details within substation equipment H04M1/57, signalling details H04Q3/72
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/533 Voice mail systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/537 Arrangements for indicating the presence of a recorded message , whereby the presence information might include a preview or summary of the message

Abstract

An intelligent voice message status indication device for a single line of a telephone network includes a controller that responds to caller-ID signals to detect whether a mailbox contains a message, responds to a call-waiting signal to break communication with the voicemail system during message retrieval to capture an incoming call, and toggles multiple indicators associated with respective sub-mailboxes on a single line. The message waiting indicators may include respective unique audio, as well as respective unique, visual indication of message presence in one or more mailboxes. The voicemail servers of the network may be correspondingly partitioned to host multiple mailboxes and to provide unique outbound caller IDs to identify a mailbox having a message.

Claims

1. A method of providing message notification in a telephone network having a voicemail server, said method comprising:

providing a pair of unique ID numbers associated with message status, defined as including a first unique ID number and a second unique ID number, and

responding to a customer premise equipment (CPE) device to transmit the first unique ID number according to presence of a message in said voicemail server and the second unique ID number in absence of a message in said voicemail server.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing multiple pairs of unique ID numbers for multiple mailboxes of said voicemail server, with a first unique ID of each pair associated with the presence of a voicemail message and a second unique ID of each pair associated with the absence of a voicemail message, and

responding to the CPE device to transmit the first unique ID number of one of the multiple pairs of unique ID numbers associated with a mailbox having a voicemail message.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing call-waiting in the telephone network, and

interrupting the responding step in response to an incoming call by detecting an in-band call-waiting tone.