DOCUMENT SELECTION SYSTEM

Abstract: A method of obtaining a document including the steps of receiving a telephone call from a customer to a central bureau number, answering the telephone call, raising a prompt for an identifying number, and transmitting to the customer data representing the document identified by said identifying number; the identifying number being a telephone number of a company associated with the document.

Description: 1 DOCUMENT SELECTION SYSTEM Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a document selection system and refers particularly though not exclusively, to a system for selecting documents for delivery via an electronic medium. Definitions Throughout this specification, reference to company shall be taken as including reference to an individual person, groups of persons, bodies politics, or any other form of organisation or entity Throughout this specification reference to telephone is to be taken as including a reference to facsimile, the internet including electronic mail (email) and/or the world wide web. Background to the Invention As the use of facsimile machines has become widespread, it is commonplace for individuals, companies, government bodies, or other organisations, to disseminate printed information via facsimile transmission To minimise labour costs, systems have been devised for automating the selection and sending of such documents For example, a system commonly known as 'fax on demand" allows a caller to select the desired document from a menu The available documents are stored in electronic form, and when the caller selects a document from the menu that document is transmitted to the caller's facsimile machine As the equipment to provide "fax on demand is quite costly, "fax on demand' bureau services have been established to provide such services on behalf of many businesses who wish to make documents available to the public by means 2 of facsimile transmission. One example of such a service in Australia trades under the name of Callfax. To request a document from a "fax on demand" bureau, the caller places a telephone call to a central office number. The equipment at the bureau answers the call, and then prompts the caller to enter an identifying number. The identifying number uniquely identifies a stored document which is then sent to the caller's facsimile machine. The identifying number is typically a unique number allocated by the bureau and advertised in the company's literature, advertisements, televised information, and the telephone directory. Although "fax on demand" has enjoyed considerable success, it suffers the limitation that a person requesting information must ascertain the correct identifying number to obtain the desired document. As there is no correlation between the identifying number and the company to which the document relates, it is essential to find such a number from advertising or other sources. It is therefore a principal object of the present invention to provide an improved system for obtaining documents by using a more readily determined number. Summary of the Invention According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of obtaining a document including the steps of receiving a telephone call from a customer to a central bureau number, answering the telephone call, raising a prompt for an identifying number, and transmitting to the customer data representing the document identified by said identifying number; the identifying number being a telephone number of a company associated with the document. According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of obtaining a document including the steps of receiving a telephone call from a customer to a central bureau number, answering the telephone call, raising a prompt for an identifying number, providing a prompt to the caller to enter a further number to nominate a particular document, and transmitting to the customer data 3 representing the document identified by the identifying number; the identifying number being a telephone number of a company, individual, or other organisation or entity associated with the document. This aspect of the invention is useful in cases where a company offers many documents and the company's telephone number alone is therefore not sufficient to uniquely identify the desired document. The invention also provides a method of obtaining a document including the steps of placing a telephone call to a central bureau number, answering a prompt when raised and entering an identifying number as the answer, and receiving the document; the identifying number being a telephone number of a company associated with the document. The central bureau may be operated independently of the company. Alternatively, it may be operated directly by the company. The invention also includes the means for carrying out the steps of the method of obtaining a particular document described in the preceding paragraphs. Brief description of drawings A preferred embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying illustrative drawing, which is a block diagram showing the functional units. Description of the preferred embodiment Referring to the drawing, in this embodiment of the invention, controller 3, speech synthesiser 4, and facsimile database 5 are the major parts of the apparatus of a 'fax-on-demand' bureau. A number of documents relating to a number of companies are stored in electronic form on database 5. A person wishing to obtain a copy of a particular document places a call to the bureau from facsimile machine FAX 1 using the public switched telephone network PSTN 2. Controller 3 answers the call and then uses speech synthesiser 4 to send a voice message to the caller requesting the person to enter the telephone number of the company whose 4 products/services is the subject of their enquiry. The person then enters in the relevant telephone number, which is received by controller 3. Controller 3 then accesses database 5 to find the documents associated with the telephone number received. If there are no documents, the caller is so advised, using speech synthesiser 4. If there is one document, the caller is instructed to place their facsimile machine into 'receive' mode, after which controller 3 retrieves the relevant document and sends it by facsimile transmission to FAX 1 via PSTN 2. If there are multiple documents associated with the received telephone number, the person is so advised and requested to make a selection from a menu of available documents, each document having a further identifying number. Upon the person entering the correct number the particular document selected is transmitted. It will be understood that the foregoing description of the present invention is exemplary only and many variations can be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. For example, whereas the invention is described as relating to delivery of documents by facsimile over a telephone network, other data formats and delivery media can be used. For example, the delivery medium can be a data network, such as the internet, and the data format can be an image file, hypertext markup language file, text file, sound file, moving image file, or information in any other appropriate form. Furthermore, a computer may be used in place of the facsimile machine. the documents relative to a particular company may be obtained from the web site of the company, via the world wide web. If required, further prompts may be raised with the person so that the web site of the company concerned can be followed to obtain the correct documents. It will be understood that the invention disclosed and defined in this specification extends to all alternative combinations of two or more of the individual features mentioned or evident from the text or drawings. All of these different combinations constitute various alternative aspects of the invention.

Claims: THE CLAIMS DEFINING THE INVENTION ARE AS FOLLOWS: 1. A method of obtaining a document including the steps of receiving a telephone call from a customer to a central bureau number, answering the telephone call, raising a prompt for an identifying number, and transmitting to the customer data representing the document identified by said identifying number; the identifying number being a telephone number of a company associated with the document. 2. A method of obtaining a document including the steps of receiving a telephone call from a customer to a central bureau number, answering the telephone call, raising a prompt for an identifying number, providing a prompt to the caller to enter a further number to nominate a particular document, and transmitting to the customer data representing the document identified by the identifying number; the identifying number being a telephone number of a company, individual, or other organisation or entity associated with the document. 3. A method of obtaining a document including the steps of placing a telephone call to a central bureau number, answeπng a prompt when raised and entering an identifying number as the answer, and receiving the document; the identifying number being a telephone number of a company associated with the document. 4. A method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein central bureau is operated independently of the company. 5. A method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the central bureau is operated directly by the company. 6. Means for carrying out the steps of the method of obtaining a document according to any one of claims 1 to 5.

Inventors: BENJAMIN DENNIS ANDREW, BENJAMIN, DENNIS, ANDREW
Applicants: A PTY LTD, BENJAMIN DENNIS ANDREW, A PTY. LTD., BENJAMIN, DENNIS, ANDREW
Application year: 1999
Main classification: H04N1
IPC codes: G06F17, H04M3, H04M11, H04N1