Telephonic communications – Audio message storage – retrieval – or synthesis – Dynamic audio signal recording or reproduction
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-20
2004-01-27
Tsang, Fan (Department: 2645)
Telephonic communications
Audio message storage, retrieval, or synthesis
Dynamic audio signal recording or reproduction
C379S142180, C379S386000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06683939
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to phone systems. In particular, the present invention relates to phone systems that keep a log of outgoing phone calls.
Recently, personal computers (PCs) have been used to manage phone systems for small businesses and homes. These PC-based systems typically use the personal computer as an interface for monitoring or interacting with calls. For example, in one system, the personal computer is used to answer phone calls and record messages from callers. Icons are then displayed on the PC's display unit to represent the recorded messages. If the user wants to play a message, they simply activate the appropriate icon. In other systems, the personal computer has been used to display a log of recent incoming and, in some systems, outgoing calls. In areas where caller identification (Caller ID) is available, incoming call logging systems are even able to store the caller's phone number and in some cases the caller's name.
Currently, these individual features are not efficiently integrated into a single PC-based phone system and redundant components are often needed to achieve all of the features described above.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A method and apparatus logs outgoing phone symbols dialed from an extension. To log the phone symbols, a switching network is coupled to the phone lines and passes analog Dual Tone Multiple Frequency signals from the extension to a CODEC. The CODEC converts the analog signal it receives into a series of digital values that are passed to a digital signal processor. The digital signal processor decodes the series of digital values into a set of dialed-symbol values indicative of symbols dialed from the extension. The dialed-symbol values are packaged by a processing unit interface and transmitted to a processing unit where they are stored in a log database.
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“US West PC Caller ID Website”, Oct. 7, 1999, URL: http://www.uswest.com/home/products/pccallerid/features.html.
Chiloyan John H.
Zuvela Leonard D.
Magee Theodore M.
Microsoft Corporation
Sing Simon P.
Tsang Fan
Westman Champlin & Kelly P.A.
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