Telephonic communications – Audio message storage – retrieval – or synthesis – Message signal analysis
Reexamination Certificate
1995-03-20
2001-03-13
Hunter, Daniel S. (Department: 2748)
Telephonic communications
Audio message storage, retrieval, or synthesis
Message signal analysis
C379S088120, C379S088180, C379S088230, C379S088280
Reexamination Certificate
active
06201857
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the telephone art and, in particular, to a combination telephone and voice-mail transceiver.
Answering machines are commonly available devices which allow the receiving party of a telephone call to elect to store an incoming caller's message to an electronic storage medium. Thus, if the receiving party is not available to take the call, or if he or she is available yet elects not to directly talk with a calling party, they may simply allow the answering machine to store the caller's voice message.
In addition, voice-mail systems have been created which allow a calling party the opportunity to record for later playback by the receiving party a given communication. Voice-mail systems, however, are normally either telephone company provided or are provided by companies on private branch exchanges. Thus, they are not generally available to the public, to the same level that answering machines have become commonplace. In addition, with telephone company provided voice-mail, as with a standard answering machine message, the calling party spends total message real time on the telephone line while the message for the receiving party is being recorded, thereby incurring a billing for the entire real time use of the telephone network.
As more people become familiar with voice-mail, there is a growing tendency to utilize its services, but for the fact that it is only available on PBX and via telephone company provided service as described above. It would be desirable, therefore, if a calling party calling from a standard office or residential telephone unit would be given the opportunity to select making a standard call in real time or recording and transmitting a voice-mail message to his or her receiving party.
In addition, it would be desirable if the calling terminals provided voice-mail reception capabilities with a convenient notice and access by the telephone terminal users.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of this invention, therefore, to provide a telephone control unit which provides, in addition to standard telephone transmit and receive capabilities, the ability to transmit and receive voice-mail messages over the telephone network.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide the above telephone control unit wherein messages which are transmitted are first compressed to thereby reduce the real time telephone network phone usage and thereby reduce cost of operation for the telephone control unit user.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent upon review of the specification and claims which follow.
In summary, a telephone control unit is adapted for both transmitting and receiving voice-mail messages. It comprises a voice-mail transmitter which includes a detector that detects that a voice-mail message is to be sent. The transmitter further includes storage capability to store the voice-mail messages in memory. A compression means compresses the stored voice-mail message.
A predetermined header is then attached to the compressed voice-mail message. The header and compressed voice-mail message are then transmitted over the telephone network to a user-dialed voice-mail receiver. The voice-mail receiver includes a receiver for receiving the message over the telephone network. A detector then detects the presence of a predetermined voice-mail header in the message and, in response to header detection: 1) strips off the voice-mail header; 2) decompresses the voice-mail message and 3) transduces the voice-mail message upon user-desired replay.
In the preferred implementation of the invention, the transmitter further includes an analog-to-digital converter for converting the voice-mail message to a digital format. The digital signal is then stored and processed through a digital compression algorithm before being transmitted over the telephone network with the attached header signal. The receiver further includes a digital-to-analog converter which converts the received digital messages from the transmitter over the telephone network into an analog signal format.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4790003 (1988-12-01), Kepley et al.
patent: 4998272 (1991-03-01), Hawkins, Jr. et al.
patent: 5003576 (1991-03-01), Helferich
patent: 5172404 (1992-12-01), Hashimoto
patent: 5274696 (1993-12-01), Perelman
patent: 5313516 (1994-05-01), Afshac
AMIS-Analog Protocol. Version 1 Issue 2, Feb. 1992.
“High Tech Phone Does the Dialing,” The Fairfax Journal, Aug. 19,1992 pp. C4.
“What hath (net) god wrought” The Fairfax Journal, Feb. 21, 1995 pp. B1, B2.
Octel User Reference Manual, Nov. 1994 pp. 7,8, 23-26.
Hunter Daniel S.
Six Sigma, Ltd.
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