Telephonic communications – Audio message storage – retrieval – or synthesis
Reexamination Certificate
2001-07-03
2003-12-09
Hoosain, Allan (Department: 2645)
Telephonic communications
Audio message storage, retrieval, or synthesis
C379S088090, C379S088130, C379S088140, C379S088170, C379S088180, C379S088250, C379S908000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06661877
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates in general to computer telephony messaging and, in particular, to a system and method for providing access to a unified message store logically storing computer telephony messages.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The need for complete message exchange integration has become increasingly important in the modem age of divergent electronic communications. Current electronic information exchange takes many forms. In a typical corporate setting, printed communication can take the form of electronic mail (email) and facsimiles, while recorded verbal communication can take the form of voicemails.
Each of these forms of electronic messaging presents unique advantages and trade-offs. For example, the delivery of email is assured, provided the email address is correct and current, and the email server is available. Email can be sent as a secure communication and delivery also can be confirmed by return email receipt. However, email is typically downloaded from an email server and stored locally on a user computer system. Ubiquitous access is consequently constrained by the necessity of having access to the local email store.
By comparison, the actual delivery of facsimile messages is a manual process and is inherently unreliable, as physical paper facsimiles can be lost, misdirected, or not received due to transmission failure. The delivery of facsimiles can be confirmed via facsimile protocols. Facsimile messaging, however, is the least accessible form of electronic message exchange, as a dedicated telephone number is required, the received facsimiles are not typically stored in an exchangeable digital electronic format, and delivery requires the handling of physical printed paper copies. Moreover, secure facsimiles only protect the transmission process and not actual delivery.
Finally, the delivery of voicemail, as conventionally implemented with most voicemail messaging systems, is assured and inherently confirmed upon recordation into a voicemail messaging system. Voicemail messaging offers the most accessible form of electronic messaging as voicemail messages can be retrieved over most available telephone lines.
Recent advances in standardizing message storage formats have enabled facsimile and voicemail messages to be stored in a unified message store. Unified messaging solutions allow the digital electronic message representations to be consolidated into a logically unified message exchange system. The use of digital messaging representations allows different types of messages to be accessed by a variety of compatible devices, including conventional email applications, Web browsers, telephones, personal data assistants (PDAs), and Wireless Access Protocol (WAP)-enabled devices, as well as facsimile machines (receive only).
Although convenient, digital electronic messaging for voicemail, facsimile and email present a number of unique challenges. First, each of these message types has different storage requirements. Until recently, these formats were not standardized and tended to be proprietary solutions with different physical playback requirements. Moreover, generalized solutions tend to be restricted to one storage format and fail to present a complete solution. For instance, an email store has different characteristics than would be used with a relational database, Internet file system, or Web database.
The first generation of digital electronic messaging systems recognized the need to maintain each type of electronic message, email, facsimile and voicemail, in a separate message store. These systems used message store synchronization as an add-on to conventional messaging systems. These storage systems were not standardized and messages were accessed using an ad hoc collection of message-specific applications. As well, the user interfaces and physical playback requirements varied based on the message type. For example, email messages were viewable via an email application, while voicemail messages required a separate audio playback application. Moreover, each of these applications tended to be proprietary and lacked integration with other messaging systems. As well, synchronization was difficult to achieve and the user experience varied greatly, based on the form of application used for each different message format.
Second generation attempts at integrating digital electronic messaging systems resolve the ad hoc approach in favor of a logically consolidated messaging application. Various messages types originating from heterogeneous computer telephony devices, including emails, facsimiles, and voicemails, are accessed through a virtually consolidated inbox. However, the individual messages are still separately maintained in their own legacy message stores. This approach imposed an administrative burden on maintaining each individual system and increased the overall system complexity necessary to dynamically process messaging requests through each of the separate message stores. Although an advancement over the first generation, the consolidated view approach failed to provide a flexible solution for accessing multiple storage devices and formats.
Therefore, there is a need for a unified solution capable of displaying and navigating through multiple types of digital electronic messages stored in a single unified message store. Such an approach provided a transparent, device-independent solution to accessing messages originating from physically interfaced heterogeneous computer telephony devices.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a Web based unified message inbox for accessing computer telephony messages stored in a unified message store. The Unified message inbox is presented as a graphical user interface with controls for displaying and navigating through the stored messages, including email, facsimiles, voice mail, and video mail. The unified inbox provides transparent access to messages exchanged with physically interfaced heterogeneous computer telephony devices.
An embodiment of the present invention is a system and method for providing access to a unified message store logically storing computer telephony messages. A multiplicity of heterogeneous storage objects corresponding to computer telephony messages are stored in a unified message store. An application software layer exchanging the heterogeneous storage objects with a computer telephony server is exported. The computer telephony server is interfaced via a container subsystem defining encapsulated methods including organization strategy methods and storage strategy methods. A unified inbox generating an indicator for at least one of the computer telephony messages is provided. The unified inbox exports user controls for accessing the corresponding heterogeneous storage objects stored in the unified message store.
Still other embodiments of the present invention will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, wherein is described embodiments of the invention by way of illustrating the best mode contemplated for carrying out the invention. As will be realized, the invention is capable of other and different embodiments and its several details are capable of modifications in various obvious respects, all without departing from the spirit and the scope of the present invention. Accordingly, the drawings and detailed description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature and not as restrictive.
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Choung Byung-Hee
Christofferson Kurt Lee
Dharmavaram Himabindu
Ebrahimian Varouzhan
Iyer Indira
Brokaw Christopher J.
Hickman Brian D.
Hickman Palermo & Truong & Becker LLP
Hoosain Allan
Oracle International Corporation
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