Cross-media voice mail notification and delivery

• US 8,155,281 B2
• Filed: 06/20/2007
• Issued: 04/10/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: BT Americas Incorporated (BT Group PLC)
• Original Assignee: Ribbit Corporation (BT Group PLC)
• Inventors: Griggs, Theodore Leon, Waters, Christopher Michael, Seyer, Dan, Leong, Peter X
• Primary Examiner(s): Gauthier, Gerald
• Application Number:
  US11/765,833
• Publication Number:
  US 20080317222A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,756 Days
• Field of Search: 379/88.05, 379/88.12, 379/88.14, 379/88.17, 379/88.13, 379/221.13, 379/265.01, 379/265.02, 370/392, 370/352, 455/412.2, 455/413, 709/217
• US Class Current: 379/88.14
• CPC Class Codes: A61K 31/4025 not condensed and containing further heterocyclic rings, e.g. cromakalim
• CPC Class Codes: A61K 9/2054 Cellulose; Cellulose derivatives, e.g. hydroxypropyl methylcellulose
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/224 providing notification on incoming messages, e.g. pushed notifications of received messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/152 Temporary dial plan
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/253 where a visual mode is used instead of a voice mode
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/4536 Voicemail combined with text-based messaging
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42059 Making use of the calling party identifier
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42102 Making use of the called party identifier
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/533 Voice mail systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/53333 Message receiving aspects
• 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

The subject mater herein relates to voice mail systems and, more particularly, cross-media voice mail notification and delivery. Various embodiments described herein provide systems, methods, software, and data structures that operate to, or facilitate, dispatching of voice mail notification messages to voice mailbox owners. In some embodiments, the notifications are sent to the voice mailbox owners in a text format, such as a short message service text message, email, or other text based service. These and other embodiments are described herein.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

recording and storing one or more voice mail messages in a voice mailbox of a subscriber, the storing including storing and associating each of the one or more voice mail messages with a telephone number and a voice mail retrieval address;

sending, to the subscriber, a text-based message including the voice mail retrieval address for each of the one or more stored voice mail messages notifying the subscriber of the one or more voice mails in the voice mailbox, the voice mail retrieval address being an index to retrieve the message;

receiving a selection of the voice mail retrieval address included in the text-based message;

retrieving the voice mail message associated with the voice mail retrieval address as a function of the voice mail retrieval address; and

playing the voice mail message associated with the selected one of the voice mail retrieval address.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the voice mail retrieval address is a telephone number selected from a universe of voice mail retrieval telephone numbers.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the universe of voice mail retrieval telephone numbers consists of 1,000 voice mail retrieval telephone numbers.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein sending the text-based message including the voice mail retrieval address for each of the one or more stored voice mail messages notifying the subscriber of the one or more voice mails in the voice mailbox includes information about each message.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the information about each message includes information identifying a sender of each respective message.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein sending the text-based message to the subscriber includes sending a short message service (“

SMS”

) message to the subscriber.

7. A communication system comprising:

a telephone network connection module to connect to one or more telephone networks;

a text messaging gateway to connect to one or more networks capable of transporting text-based messages;

a telephone call processing module operative to process telephone calls received via the telephone network connection module and to route telephone calls to a voice mail system; and

a database within which the voice mail system to manipulate data including voice mail message header data and provide pointers to stored recorded voice mail messages;

the voice mail system being operatively couplable to the telephone network connection module, the telephone call processing module, and the text messaging gateway, the voice mail system operative to perform operations including;

storing voice mailbox subscriber information including an association to one or more telephone numbers of a voice mailbox subscriber;

recording and storing voice mail messages; and

storing voice mail message header data of the recorded voice mail messages in the database from calls forwarded to the voice mail system by the telephone call processing module, each voice mail message including information identifying a sender of the voice mail message, a recipient subscriber of the voice mail message, and a retrieval address of the voice mail message, the retrieval address being uniquely identified by a retrieval telephone number and an identifier of the voice mailbox subscriber.

8. The communication system of claim 7, wherein each recorded voice mail message is stored in a memory location and the pointer of the corresponding voice mail message header data points to the memory location.

9. The communication system of claim 7, wherein the voice mail system is further operative to perform operations comprising:

generating a text-based message including information about one or more received voice mail messages in a subscriber voice mailbox and the retrieval address for each of the one or more received voice mail messages; and

dispatching the generated text-based message over the text messaging gateway to the voice mailbox subscriber.

10. The communication system of claim 9, wherein the voice mail system is further operable to:

Receive a telephone call routed from the telephone network connection module to the voice mail system by the telephone call processing module, the telephone call processing module providing a telephone number of the caller and a telephone number called;

retrieving a voice mail message from the database as a function of the telephone number of the caller and the telephone number called; and

playing the voice mail message to the caller.

11. The communication system of claim 10, wherein the telephone number called is the retrieval address of the retrieved voice mail message.

12. The communication system of claim 7, wherein the one or more networks capable of transporting text-based messages includes a network capable of transporting a short message service (“

SMS”

) message.

13. A tangible computer-readable medium, with instructions encoded thereon, which when executed, cause a suitably configured computing system to perform operations comprising:

retrieving voice mailbox information of a subscriber voice mailbox from a database including voice mail system data to obtain data associated with messages in the subscriber voice mailbox;

generating text of a text-based message, the text including at least a partial listing of messages in the subscriber voice mailbox, each listed message including a retrieval telephone number that when combined with an identifier of the voice mailbox subscriber provides a unique retrieval key; and

dispatching the generated text in the form of a text-message to the voice mailbox subscriber.

14. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the instructions, when further executed, further cause the suitably configured computing system to:

receive a telephone call to a retrieval telephone number from a telephone number associated with the subscriber;

retrieve a voice mail message as a function of the retrieval telephone number and the telephone number associated with the subscriber; and

play the voice mail message.

15. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein when dispatching the text text-message to the voice mailbox subscriber includes dispatching the generated text as a short message service text-message.

16. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the instructions, when further executed, further cause the suitably configured computing system to:

receive a request for the voice mailbox information from the voice mailbox subscriber.

17. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the request for the voice mailbox information is received in the form of a text-message.

18. A method comprising:

recording and storing one or more voice mail messages in a voice mailbox of a subscriber;

sending, to the subscriber, a text-based message including, for each of the one or more stored voice mail messages;

a voice mail retrieval address to retrieve the specific voice mail message, the voice mail retrieval address to identify each of the one or more stored voice mail messages by a including a retrieval telephone number that, when combined with an identifier of the voice mailbox subscriber, uniquely identifies each of the one or more stored voice mail messages;

a link to send a reply text message to a sender of a specific voice mail message; and

a link to send a voice mail reply to a received voice mail.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

receiving a selection of a link to send a reply text message to a sender of a voice mail message and text for the reply text message; and

forwarding the received text for the text message as a text message to the sender of the voice mail.

20. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

receiving a selection of a link to send a voice mail reply to the received voice mail;

initiating a phone call on a telephone from which the selection was received and prompting a caller to record the voice mail reply;

recording and storing the voice mail reply; and

sending a notification to the sender of the voice mail that a voice mail reply is waiting.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the notification of the waiting voice mail reply is sent via text message to a phone number from which the voice mail sender left the voice mail.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the voice mail reply is stored in an ad hoc account if the voice mail sender is not a voice mail system subscriber and the notification text message includes instructions to retrieve the voice mail reply.