Telephonic communications – With usage measurement – Call charge metering or monitoring
Reexamination Certificate
2001-04-11
2002-07-16
Nguyen, Duc (Department: 2643)
Telephonic communications
With usage measurement
Call charge metering or monitoring
C379S114130, C379S121050
Reexamination Certificate
active
06421433
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The invention relates to telephone voice personal advertisements and telephone dating services.
BACKGROUND ART
Traditional “personals” or “lonely hearts” columns in newspapers involve the publication of an anonymous advertisement, identified with a box number. A reader interested in contacting the advertiser mails a letter which is forwarded by the newspaper to the advertiser. With the advent of voice mail, these “personals” columns have become more immediate and effective through what are referred to as “voice personals”. The advertiser, in addition to a published ad, leaves a voice mail recording which is accessed through a central phone number by entering the advertiser's box number. The interested party can then listen to the voice message and leave a voice mail message in reply. Generally, such systems charge the users (by credit card or through use of a 1-900 number) to publish an advertisement or record or reply to voice mail messages, but do not charge for “browsing” the voice mail messages on the system. Consequently, a large percentage of users of the telephone lines required for such a system are using the system free of charge by merely browsing, which causes an uneconomic use of the majority of the lines. Another problem with such systems is that the person who responds to an ad must lose his or her anonymity by leaving a telephone number or address to contact. This increases the reluctance of users to respond to the ads.
A development which overcomes some of these difficulties is a telephone meeting service of the type referred to by the trade-mark “Chatline”. According to this system, referred to herein as a “live connection system”, callers record a greeting when entering the system, and then browse through the greetings of other callers presently on the system. If a caller wishes to make a live connection with a party associated with a particular recorded greeting, then a request is made through the system, and if the target party consents to the connection after listening to the callers greeting, a live connection is made. Callers are charged by the minute to credit card or through use of a 1-900 number. This system has the advantage that all parties remain anonymous, and the system can charge customers for all the time they spend on the system. See also Solomon et al. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,878,239, 4,847,890, 5,058,152 and 5,361,295 which describe similar telephone systems which permit anonymous meeting.
“Live connection systems” require more expensive equipment and monitoring than a basic “voice personals” system, and so most newspapers utilize only the standard “voice personals” arrangement. There is therefore a need to increase the revenue of such voice personals systems by encouraging users to switch to a “live connection system”.
DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION
The present invention therefore provides a method of interconnecting a “voice personal system” and a “live connection system” which would alert the voice personals “browser” of the presence of potential live connections and transfer the browser to the live connection system. The user of the “live connection system” similarly can be switched to the voice personals system to leave a temporary mailbox.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5058152 (1991-10-01), Solomon et al.
patent: 5768348 (1998-06-01), Solomon et al.
patent: 5818836 (1998-10-01), DuVal
patent: 6125178 (2000-09-01), Walker et al.
patent: 6282515 (2001-08-01), Speicher
SA Interactive Information Technology, Inc.
Seed Intellectual Property Law Group PLLC
Taylor Barry W
LandOfFree
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