Telephonic communications – Audio message storage – retrieval – or synthesis – Indication or notification of message
Reexamination Certificate
2000-09-07
2003-05-06
Hoosain, Allan (Department: 2645)
Telephonic communications
Audio message storage, retrieval, or synthesis
Indication or notification of message
C379S067100, C379S088070, C379S088130, C379S088170, C379S088220, C379S908000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06560318
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to message notification systems configured for sending a notification message to a subscriber having received a message according to subscriber notification preferences, and subscriber directory systems configured for storing the subscriber notification preferences.
2. Description of the Related Art
The evolution of the public switched telephone network has resulted in a variety of voice applications and services that can be provided to individual subscribers and business subscribers. Such services include voice messaging systems that enable landline or wireless subscribers to record, playback, and forward voice mail messages. However, the ability to provide enhanced services to subscribers of the public switched telephone network is directly affected the limitations of the public switched telephone network. In particular, the public switched telephone network operates according to a protocol that is specifically designed for the transport of voice signals; hence any modifications necessary to provide enhanced services can only be done by switch vendors that have sufficient know-how of the existing public switched telephone network infrastructure.
For example, existing messaging systems such as voice mail messaging systems rely on a proprietary notification system that has limited adaptability to expanded notification schemes. For example, the simplest type of notification system involves a message waiting indicator on a telephone connected to a private branch exchange (PBX), where the PBX asserts a message waiting indicator signal in response to receiving a proprietary command from a connected voice mail system. A more advanced system may initiate a page to a subscriber's pager indicating reception of the stored voice message. In each of these cases, however, the notification process necessarily relies on the proprietary features of the PBX and the associated voice mail system.
Wireless based communications system have voice messaging systems that notify a wireless subscriber via his or her wireless telephone of a stored voicemail message. Such notification systems are beneficial in cases where the subscriber was making another call on his or her wireless telephone, or if the subscriber's wireless telephone was previously unavailable due to being turned off or outside a service area. Such wireless based communications systems, however, rely on the proprietary features of the wireless indications system in order to notify the wireless subscriber.
Short Message Services (SMS) have been implemented in wireless telephone communications systems as a way to send a message to a subscriber's cellular phone to notify the subscriber that he or she has received a new voice mail. A messaging server, also referred to as a Short Message Service Center (SMSC), is configured for receiving a notification message from a messaging source according to Short Message Peer to Peer Protocol (SMPP). The messaging source may be, for example, a voice mail system, a paging system, or an e-mail interface resident within the wireless telephone communications system. The SMSC, in response to receiving the notification message from the messaging source, transmits a short message to the cellular phone based on the destination telephone number specified within the notification message. However, this arrangement still provides only limited flexibility in enabling different sources to send a notification to a cellular phone. Hence, the above-described arrangement still lacks sufficient flexibility and scalability to enable messaging subscribers to select the means for notification.
Unified communications systems are under development as a way of enhancing messaging services for users such-as wireless telephone subscribers. A disadvantage of unified communications systems implemented as enhanced versions of the voice mail system, paging system, or e-mail interface resident within the wireless telephone communications system is that such implementation requires detailed knowledge of the proprietary protocols associated with the voice mail systems. Hence, such implementations are available only from switch vendors having knowledge of the proprietary protocols.
Use of a unified communications system implemented independent of the existing proprietary voice mail systems enables service providers to use scalable and distributed systems using recognized communication protocols. Hence, the service providers may use such unified communications systems across multiple platforms, independent of protocol, for storage of various types of messages, for example voice messages, facsimile, and e-mail stored in a centralized messaging store. However, the problem still remains that there exists several different types of notification devices, such as a pager, a phone indicator light, stutter dial tone, facsimile, and telephone. Moreover, for each message that enters a messaging store, one or more subscribers may need to be notified over one or more different notification devices. Finally, the different types of notification devices have respective notification protocols, increasing the complexity in designing a notification source for sending a notification to different types of notification devices.
Commonly-assigned, copending application Ser. No. 09/629,052, filed Jul. 31, 2000, entitled Arrangement for Common-Format Notification Delivery Messages Based on Notification Device Type in an IP-based Notification-Architecture, the disclosure of which is incorporated in its entirety herein by reference, discloses a notification architecture that utilizes multiple processes configured for managing notification operations based on reception of SMTP-based messages within IMAP based message stores. The notification architecture includes a notification process, configured for receiving notification messages for respective subscribers from messaging sources according to Internet Protocol. The notification process accesses subscriber profile information from an open protocol-based subscriber directory (such as LDAP) based on the received notification messages. The notification process determines, for each received notification message, the subscriber's notification preference based on the accessed profile information, and selectively outputs a notification delivery message according SMTP protocol to at least one notification delivery process within the notification architecture based on the subscriber's notification preference. The notification process may have access via the prescribed open protocol to multiple notification delivery processes, each configured for outputting a notification to a subscriber's notification device according to a corresponding device protocol. Hence, subscribers may be notified of events according to their respective preferences, including subscriber device type, or time of notification. The notification process also generates the notification delivery message using selected portions of the notification information and subscriber information based on the notification device type, providing a common format for device specific notification messages. Hence, each notification delivery process can receive device specific notification messages according to a common format from the notification process or another external process.
An important consideration in effective deployment of the notification architecture illustrated in the above-incorporated application Ser. No. 09/629,052 is that the subscriber's notification preference is stored and retrieved in the subscriber directory in a manner that enables flexible selection of different notification devices. For example, a service provider configured for serving subscriber devices (i.e., local devices) assigned within a service provider network may have sufficient device information for sending a notification to the local device. However, a notification subscriber may wish to use a notification device that is not a local device, but rather is assigne
Joshi Satish
Lockwood Robert James
Pande Govind
Parasu Nagendran
Ravishankar Geetha
Cisco Technology Inc.
Hoosain Allan
Turkevich Leon R.
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