Telephonic communications – Audio message storage – retrieval – or synthesis – Interaction with an external nontelephone network
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-11
2004-06-08
Tsang, Fan (Department: 2645)
Telephonic communications
Audio message storage, retrieval, or synthesis
Interaction with an external nontelephone network
C455S414100, C709S206000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06748056
ABSTRACT:
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the United States Patent & Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to messaging systems, and more particularly, to universal messaging systems that integrate a voice (and possibly also fax) messaging platform with an electronic mail messaging platform to provide universal access to a subscriber's voice, fax, and e-mail messages from either a Web client, such as a Web browser, or a traditional telephone handset session on the voice mail platform.
BACKGROUND
So-called “Universal Messaging” systems are an attempt to combine traditional voice and fax messaging capabilities with electronic mail (“e-mail”) capabilities. One approach to providing a universal messaging system is to integrate an existing voice and/or fax messaging platform (hereinafter “voice messaging platform”) with an existing e-mail messaging platform. Each platform retains its own message store, but the system integrates those stores so that a subscriber can access all of the subscriber's voice, fax and e-mail messages from a single interface. Universal messaging systems typically provide access to messages from either a Web client, such as a Web browser, or a traditional telephone handset.
Many telephone companies today provide voice messaging services to their respective telephone customers. Such services typically are provided by a large-scale voice messaging platform, such as the Network Applications Platform (NAP) available from Unisys Corporation, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, which is capable of providing voice and fax messaging capabilities to hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Recently, with the advent of the Internet and the World-Wide-Web (“the Web”), e-mail messaging has become in many cases as popular, if not more popular, than traditional voice messaging. Telephone companies would therefore like to be able to offer their customers a universal messaging solution that gives those customers a common point of access to both voice and e-mail messaging services.
Integrated universal messaging solutions are particularly attractive to telephone companies, because the existing voice messaging system of the telephone company can be integrated with a separate e-mail messaging platform without having to displace or replace the voice messaging system. A telephone company can choose to host the e-mail messaging platform itself, or to partner with an internet service provider (ISP) that already has an existing e-mail messaging platform. With an integrated universal messaging solution, the telephone company can then provide a new service (universal access to both e-mail and voice messages) to a subset of its existing voice messaging subscriber base without impacting the remainder of its subscriber base. Thus, an integrated universal messaging solution protects the telephone company's investment in its voice messaging system by adding to it instead of replacing it.
Integrated universal messaging systems usually provide message access via both a Web browser interface and a traditional telephony user interface (i.e., via a telephone handset). With the Web browser interface, a subscriber logs into the universal messaging system via an Internet connection and is presented with a single view of all voice, fax, and e-mail messages. E-mail messages are retrieved and displayed in the typical manner. Voice messages are typically retrieved as audio files that are then played over the subscriber's computer audio system by a Web browser plug-in or the like. With the telephony user interface (TUI), the subscriber is able to call into the voice messaging platform in the usual manner and to obtain a count of all waiting voice, fax, and e-mail messages. For example, the subscriber may hear a prompt such as “you have <n> voice messages, and <x> e-mails in your mailbox”. The subscriber can listen to voice messages in the usual manner. For e-mail messages, the caller may be presented with the time and date of a message, the message size, and the number of attachments. Additionally, the sender and subject lines of an e-mail message may automatically be converted from text-to-speech and played back to the subscriber. If requested by the subscriber, the main body of the e-mail message may also be converted from text-to-speech and played to the caller.
In order to provide a subscriber with e-mail message status and content via a telephone handset in an integrated universal messaging solution, the TUI of the voice messaging platform must not only manage the session with the voice messaging platform, but also must manage the session with the e-mail messaging platform. One problem with managing both sessions is that these two environments have historically provided very different user experiences. Users of voice messaging systems have become accustomed to very fast, almost real-time responses for retrieval and playback of voice messages and are likely to hang up if forced to wait even several seconds for an operation to complete. On the contrary, because access to e-mail messages and other information over a network, such as the Internet, is inherently more prone to access delays, delays in retrieving an e-mail message from an e-mail client or Web browser are much more tolerated (and even expected) by those who use e-mail and the Web regularly and are accustomed to such delays. Consequently, there is a need for methods and apparatus that improve the coordination of telephony handset sessions with e-mail messaging sessions in integrated universal messaging systems and that help to bridge the gap between user experiences in both environments. The present invention addresses this need.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to methods and apparatus for coordinating a telephony session on a voice messaging platform with an e-mail session on an e-mail messaging platform in an integrated universal messaging system in a manner that bridges the gap between user experiences in the two different environments.
A method of the present invention comprises the steps of: (a) receiving a call on the voice messaging platform placed by a subscriber from a telephone handset and processing the call on the voice messaging platform in accordance with a first call flow; (b) invoking from the first call flow, a second call flow that initiates access to the subscriber's account on the e-mail messaging platform, the second call flow executing in parallel with, and asynchronously of, the first call flow; (c) continuing to execute the first call flow while the second call flow is executing; and (d) playing one or more prompts by the first call flow, as needed, to mask at least a portion of any delays experienced in receiving a response from the second call flow. The step of invoking the second call flow from the first call flow can be made in response to a specific request for access from the subscriber, or it can be made automatically by the first call flow on behalf of the subscriber. Additionally, a telephony session identifier is created that identifies the subscriber's session on the voice messaging platform, and an e-mail session identifier is created that identifies the corresponding session on the e-mail messaging platform. An association is maintained between the telephony session identifier and the e-mail session identifier to enable the two sessions to be coordinated. According to another feature of the invention, a timestamp is generated each time access to the subscriber's e-mail account is initiated by the first call flow. The timestamp is passed with the request for access so that it can be returned with any response provided by the second call flow. When a response is received, the timestamp returned in the respo
Capriotti Steven John
Ramanlal Vikash
Russell Gary Paul
Shires Regina
Atlass Michael B.
Chow Ming
Starr Mark T.
Tsang Fan
Unisys Corporation
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