Patent ID: 6259780
Filing Date: 2001-07-10
Classification: H04M

Abstract:
An apparatus comprising:one or more extension phones having caller ID display capability and having one or more switches thereon which can be operated by a user to signal the occurrence or existence of one or more conditions, said extension phones further having a display and a digital data output port at which digital data may be outputted and a microprocessor programmed to receive caller ID data or a message that no caller ID data was received and either display said caller ID data on said display or display a message that no caller ID data was received, said microprocessor being further programmed to read the state of said switches and reformat one or more items from said caller ID data into one or more alphanumeric strings and/or add one or more prefix or suffix codes or data to one or more items of said caller ID data in accordance with the state of said switches, and to output the processed caller ID data at said digital data output;a PEU circuit having one or more ports configured to be coupled to telephone lines and one or more ports configured to be coupled to said one or more extension phones; anda computer coupled to said PEU circuit via a bus, said computer being programmed to:receive a signal from said PEU circuit, said signal indicating that an incoming ring signal is arriving on a particular telephone line;send a signal to said PEU circuit to cause a caller ID detection circuit therein to detect and decode incoming caller ID signals on said telephone line;obtain caller ID data from said caller ID detection circuit if any caller ID data was detected;look up one or more extension phones that are designated in a routing table to receive incoming calls and send a signal to each of said extension phones to cause them to ring;receive a signal from said PEU circuit, said signal indicating which of said one or more extension phones went off-hook; andif any caller ID data was received, send said caller ID data to the extension phone which went off-hook, and, if no caller ID data was received, send a message to said extension phone that went off-hook telling it to display a message that no caller ID data was received.