System for the remote notification and retrieval of electronically stored messages

• US 6,535,586 B1
• Filed: 12/30/1998
• Issued: 03/18/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Milewski, Allen E., Millen, David, Cloutier, Jocelyn
• Primary Examiner(s): Tsang, Fan
• Assistant Examiner(s): FOSTER, ROLAND G
• Application Number:
  US09/222,908
• Time in Patent Office: 1,539 Days
• Field of Search: 379/88-2-, 379/88.16, 379/88.17, 379/88.19, 379/88.22, 379/88.27, 379/88.28, 379/88.23, 455/413, 340/7.1, 340/7.22, 340/7.23, 340/7.49, 340/7.52, 380/247-230, 380/257, 380/260, 380/270, 380/271, 380/273, 380/274, 380/277-286, 380/28, 380/30, 709/200, 709/204
• US Class Current: 379/88.13
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/652 Means for playing back the recorded messages by remote control over a telephone line H04M1/658 takes precedence

Abstract

The present invention provides a method and system to generate a unique code for a message and then allows easy and direct access to the content of that specific message. The unique code is transmitted in a message alert, which may be implemented for a variety of media. In particular, according to one embodiment, the present invention provides a method and system for enhanced messaging services incorporating the capability of alerting a message service subscriber to the receipt of high priority messages according to a defined set of filter criteria. The present invention is highly flexible and can be designed to work with any type of electronic message including e-mail, voice mail, facsimile etc. Furthermore, the enhanced messaging services are transparent to the typical messaging services in use today so that subscribers are not required to change messaging services or learn a new system.

Claims

1. A method for the retrieval of electronically stored messages comprising:

i) receiving a code signature;

ii) retrieving a message corresponding to said code signature, further comprising the following steps;

a) storing said code signature in memory;

b) retrieving a selected portion of a stored message from a message server;

c) generating a second code signature based upon said current selected portion of a stored message; and

d) comparing said code signature based upon said second code signature such that if the code signature is not equal to the second code signature, steps b-d are repeated; and

iii) transmitting said message in a selected media format to a selected recipient over a network.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of converting a retrieved message to a selected media format.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein messages comprise voice-mail messages.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein messages comprise electronic mail (e-mail) messages.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein messages comprise facsimile (FAX) messages.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said network comprises a wireless network.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein converting retrieved messages to a selected media format comprises converting text to speech (TTS).