Abstract:
Methods and apparatus for redirecting Internet-type text messages from a computer workstation to a digital telephone having an LCD display include replacing Internet browser plug-ins with applications which intercept messages and redirect them to the digital telephone. The applications also permit the digital telephone to log on to the workstation and identify the address of the telephone so that messages may be forwarded to the correct address.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0001]    1. Field of the Invention  
           [0002]    The invention relates to digital telephony. More particularly, the invention relates to methods and apparatus for routing internet messages for display on the screen of a digital telephone.  
           [0003]    2. Brief Description of the Prior Art  
           [0004]    The modern office environment includes data and telephone networks. As illustrated in FIG. 1, employees typically have both a telephone  10  and a computer workstation  12  on their desk. Often the telephone  10  is a modern digital telephone which includes a relatively large LCD display  14  for displaying the date and time and call information when the phone is in use.  
           [0005]    Computer workstations were originally provided for data input and retrieval, document creation, etc. Today, however, computer workstations are used for communication. Electronic mail and instant messaging are common in most offices today. One of the disadvantages of electronic mail and instant messages is that they can interfere with an employee&#39;s other work. For example, as shown in FIG. 1, an instant message  16  may pop up on an employee&#39;s screen obscuring the document  18  the employee was reading, creating or editing. This kind of interruption can adversely affect productivity. Similarly, electronic mail delivery calls the attention of an employee with a flashing icon and an audible sound. This tempts the employee to stop working and immediately check the electronic mail. Unless the mail concerns an urgent matter, this distraction also adversely affects productivity. Still another disadvantage of electronic mail and particularly instant messages is that there is usually no simple way of forwarding them to a different location. Unlike telephone calls which are easily redirected from one device to another device almost anywhere in the world, it is not as simple to redirect an instant message to, e.g., a wireless device.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0006]    It is therefore an object of the invention to provide methods and apparatus for preventing electronic mail and instant messages from interrupting an employee&#39;s work.  
           [0007]    It is also an object of the invention to provide methods and apparatus for redirecting electronic mail and instant messages from a computer workstation to another digital device.  
           [0008]    It is another object of the invention to provide methods and apparatus for utilizing the LCD display of a digital telephone when it is not being used to display call information.  
           [0009]    It is yet another object of the invention to provide methods and apparatus for redirecting virtually any Internet data from a computer workstation to another digital device.  
           [0010]    It is another object of the invention to provide methods and apparatus whereby Internet data can be redirected from a computer workstation to a digital device anywhere in the world.  
           [0011]    In accord with these objects which will be discussed in detail below, the apparatus of the invention includes at least one digital telephone coupled to the Internet, a computer workstation coupled to the Internet, and an application program which redirects data received by the computer workstation to the display of the digital telephone.  
           [0012]    According to one embodiment, a computer workstation is coupled to the Internet and to a TCP/IP LAN and a digital telephone having an LCD display is coupled to a local PBX and to the TCP/IP LAN. The computer workstation is provided with an Internet browser and an application that replaces the plug-in provided by the browser&#39;s vendor to handle the messaging features. The application uses the same port designated to the original browser plug-in. In addition to the normal features of the original plug-in, two new features are provided: the capability to login at the digital telephone and the capability to resend the messaging service information packets to the digital telephone, after adding the digital phone addressing (received during login) to the original message.  
           [0013]    According to a second embodiment, a computer workstation is connected to the Internet and a digital telephone having an LCD display is connected to a local PBX. The local PBX is connected to a server computer which is connected to the Internet and which provides Internet access over the PBX via a proprietary interface. The computer workstation is provided with an Internet browser and an application that replaces the plug-in provided by the browser&#39;s vendor to handle the messaging features. The application uses the same port designated to the original browser plug-in. In addition to the normal features of the original plug-in, two new features are provided: the capability to login at the digital telephone via the PBX and the capability to resend the messaging service information packets to the digital telephone, after adding the digital phone addressing (received during login) to the original message.  
           [0014]    In both embodiments, the PBX “forwarding” feature can be applied to the messages displayed on the digital telephone&#39;s LCD display. Thus, Internet messages can be forwarded to any telephone or digital device connected to the PSTN anywhere in the world. Messages are forwarded via a “message mail” similar to the existing “voice mail”.  
           [0015]    An exemplary embodiment of the invention employs the Siemens Hicom™ 150 AllServe™ PBX hub. The Hicom™ 150 includes a LAN card for coupling the PBX to a TCP/IP LAN. A new application is installed in the Hicom™ 150 LAN card to receive TCP/IP packets related to the messaging service, decode and format the messages and send them to the corresponding Call Processing User Interface for delivery to LCD equipped digital telephones coupled to the PBX. The PBX Call Processing User Interface is enhanced to support the messaging service login procedure and to administer the display content presentation. This embodiment allows the Hicom™ 150 AllServe™ users to have access to Internet messaging services regardless of where they are actually located, as long as they are connected directly to the Hicom™ 150 AllServe™ in any of the networked corporate facilities or connected remotely to the Hicom™ 150 AllServe™ via its fixed or mobile tele-working features. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0016]    [0016]FIG. 1 is a high level diagram illustrating a state of the art digital telephone with an LCD display and a computer workstation having internet access;  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 2 is a high level diagram illustrating a first embodiment of the invention for rerouting Internet messaging services from the computer workstation to the digital telephone;  
         [0018]    [0018]FIG. 3 is a high level block diagram illustrating a second embodiment of the invention for rerouting Internet messaging services from the computer workstation to the digital telephone via a server computer connected to a TCO/IP network and to the PBX;  
         [0019]    [0019]FIG. 4 is a high level block diagram illustrating the software modifications made to an Internet browser to effect the rerouting of Internet message services according to the invention; and  
         [0020]    [0020]FIG. 5 is a high level block diagram illustrating an exemplary embodiment of the invention based on a Siemens Hicom™ 150 AllServe™ PBX hub couple d to a corporate network and the PSTN.  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0021]    Turning now to FIG. 2, the apparatus of the invention includes at least one digital telephone  100  having an LCD display  102  and a computer workstation  104 , both of which are coupled to the Internet  106 . As used herein, the term “Internet” may be replaced with the term “TCP/IP” network which may or may not be connected to the Internet. For example, if Internet-type messaging is to be limited to a corporate “Intranet”, the TCP/IP network will not be (freely) connected to the Internet. Typically, however, the corporate TCP/IP network will be coupled (with few restrictions) to the public Internet. As shown in FIG. 2, the digital telephone  102  is also coupled to a corporate PBX  108 . As described in more detail below with reference to FIG. 4 an application program is provided on the computer workstation  104  which redirects data received by the computer workstation to the display  102  of the digital telephone  100 . The computer workstation  104  is provided with an Internet browser and an application that replaces the plug-in provided by the browser&#39;s vendor to handle the messaging features. The application uses the same port designated to the original browser plug-in. In addition to the normal features of the original plug-in, two new features are provided: the capability to login at the digital telephone  100  and the capability to resend the messaging service information packets to the digital telephone  100 , after adding the digital phone addressing (received during login) to the original message.  
         [0022]    Turning now to FIG. 3, according to a second embodiment, a digital telephone  100  having an LCD display  102  is connected to a local PBX  108  and a computer workstation  104  is connected to the Internet  106 . The local PBX hub  110  is connected to a server computer  112  which is connected to the Internet  106  and which provides Internet access over the PBX  108  via a proprietary interface. As described in more detail below with reference to FIG. 4, the computer workstation  104  is provided with an Internet browser and an application that replaces the plug-in provided by the browser&#39;s vendor to handle the messaging features. The application uses the same port designated to the original browser plug-in. In addition to the normal features of the original plug-in, two new features are provided: the capability to login at the digital telephone  100  via the PBX  108  and the capability to resend the messaging service information packets to the digital telephone  100 , after adding the digital phone addressing (received during login) to the original message.  
         [0023]    In both of the aforementioned embodiments, the PBX  108  “forwarding” feature can be applied to the messages displayed on the digital telephone&#39;s LCD display  102 . Thus, Internet messages can be forwarded to any telephone or digital device connected to the PSTN anywhere in the world. Messages are forwarded via a “message mail” similar to the existing “voice mail”.  
         [0024]    Referring now to FIG. 4, the Internet browser software provided in the computer workstation is illustrated in the directory  112 . The directory  112  includes the browser  114  and a subdirectory  116  containing “plug-ins”. The contents of the subdirectory  116  are illustrated in part in the window  118 . These plug-ins include an instant message plug-in  120  and a mail plug-in  122 . According to the invention, these plug-ins are replaced with one or more applications  124  which provide additional functionality. The application(s)  124  uses the same port(s)  126  designated to the original browser plug-in(s). In addition to the normal features of the original plug-in(s), two new features are provided: the capability to login at the digital telephone via the PBX and the capability to resend the messaging service information packets to the digital telephone, after adding the digital phone addressing (received during login) to the original message.  
         [0025]    According to the invention, any Internet messaging services may be provided to the digital telephone(s) via applications which replace plug-ins. These services include news groups, stock quotes, news headlines, weather reports, auction information as well as instant messages and electronic mail.  
         [0026]    Referring now to FIG. 5, an exemplary embodiment of the invention employs the Siemens Hicom™ 150 AllServe™ PBX hub  200  which is coupled to the PSTN  202  and a corporate PBX network as well as a corporate data LAN shown collectively in FIG. 5 as  204 . A plurality of digital phones  100  are connected to the corporate PBX and a plurality of computer workstations are coupled to the corporate LAN. The Hicom™ 150 hub  200  includes a LAN card for coupling the PBX to a TCP/IP LAN. A new application is installed in the Hicom™ 150 LAN card to receive TCP/IP packets related to the messaging services, decode and format the messages and send them to the corresponding Call Processing User Interface in the hub  200  for delivery to LCD equipped digital telephones  100  coupled to the PBX  204 . The PBX Call Processing User Interface is enhanced to support the messaging service login procedure and to administer the display content presentation. This embodiment allows the Hicom™ 150 AllServe™ users to have access to Internet messaging services regardless of where they are actually located, as long as they are connected directly to the Hicom™ 150 AllServe™ in any of the networked corporate facilities including any digital phones  100 ′ coupled via corporate wireless service  206 . In addition, remote digital telephones  300  coupled to the PSTN  202 , including remote wireless devices  300 ′ served by a wireless provider  306  may connect remotely to the Hicom™ 150 AllServe™ via its fixed or mobile tele-working features.  
         [0027]    There have been described and illustrated herein methods and apparatus for providing Internet text messages on the screen of a digital phone. While particular embodiments of the invention have been described, it is not intended that the invention be limited thereto, as it is intended that the invention be as broad in scope as the art will allow and that the specification be read likewise. It will therefore be appreciated by those skilled in the art that yet other modifications could be made to the provided invention without deviating from its spirit and scope as so claimed.