Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20030133543
Timestamp: 2018-03-23 03:18:01
Document Index: 217390665

Matched Legal Cases: ['Application No. 60', 'arty 110', 'arty 130', 'arty 110', 'arty 130', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 130', 'arty 110', 'arty 130', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 130', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 130', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 130', 'arty 130', 'arty 130', 'arty 130', 'arty 130', 'arty 130', 'arty 110', 'arty 130', 'arty 130', 'arty 130', 'arty 130', 'arty 130', 'arty 110', 'arty 130', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 130', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 110', 'arty 110']

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/348,641, filed Jan. 15, 2002.
The present invention relates generally to communication networks, and more particularly, to methods and systems for providing enriched messaging services.
Most telephone systems provide a voice mail feature or another mechanism for recoding messages when the called party is not available. Typically, when the called party is not available, the calling party is presented with a greeting that indicates that the called party is not available and that invites the calling party to leave a message. Once the calling party has recorded a message, the called party (i.e., the message recipient) can thereafter retrieve the recorded message at his or her convenience. The greeting that is presented to the calling party is generally a standard greeting that is not specific to the calling party or the call itself.
Similarly, when a person calls a business, the telephone call is often initially answered by an automated agent that presents the caller with a standard greeting. Businesses often employ an interactive voice response (IVR) system that efficiently provides callers with information in the form of recorded messages and obtains information from callers using keypad or voice responses to recorded queries. Such IVR systems typically answer a telephone call and provide a standard greeting to the caller that includes a menu of options that are available to the caller. For example, the menu of options typically indicates the set of options that are associated with the buttons on the telephone keypad. The menu of options that is presented to the calling party is generally a standard list that is not specific to the calling party or the call itself.
A need therefore exists for a method and apparatus for delivering enhanced messaging services to a calling party. A further need exists for a method and apparatus for delivering a message to a calling party that is based on properties of the telephone call.
Generally, a method and apparatus are disclosed for delivering enhanced messages to a calling party. The present invention provides a message document address to the calling party that is a pointer or hyperlink to a message document containing a message for the calling party. The message document address may be, for example, a uniform resource locator (URL) identifying an Internet document or a database address identifying a database document or entry. Thus, the present invention provides a convenient mechanism for providing information to a calling party, such as a message for the calling party when the called party is not available or a list of user-specific menu options in an IVR system.
The message document generally contains information that the called party would like to be presented to the calling party and may be stored by the called party or accessed over a network, such as a web page that may be accessed over the Internet. The message document can be (i) a static document created, for example, by or on behalf of the called party; (ii) a default document created, for example, in accordance with predefined document content rules; or (iii) a dynamically generated document based on one or more rules that alter the content of the document based on various characteristics of the calling party or the call (or both). In addition, the presentation of the message document address to the user can be conditioned upon the satisfaction of one or more rules, such as providing the message document address only when the called party is unavailable or based on one or more predefined characteristics of the calling party or the call (or both).
[0009]FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary network environment in which the present invention can operate;
[0010]FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram of an exemplary switch incorporating features of the present invention;
[0011]FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary exchange of signals between the calling party and the switch of FIG. 1 in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;
[0012]FIG. 4 is a flow chart describing an exemplary enhanced message handling process implemented by the switch of FIG. 1; and
[0013]FIG. 5 illustrates the processing of the message document address by the calling party.
[0014]FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary network environment in which the present invention can operate. As shown in FIG. 1, a calling party 110 calls a called party 130 and the call is routed through at least one switch 120, discussed below in conjunction with FIG. 2. According to one aspect of the present invention, a message document address is presented to the calling party 110 that is a pointer or hyperlink to a message document containing a message for the calling party, such as a web page that may be accessed over the Internet. Thus, the message document address may be, for example, a uniform resource locator (URL) identifying an Internet document or a database address identifying a database document or entry.
The document identified by the message document address contains appropriate information that the called party 130 would like to be presented to the calling party 110, for example, on the telephone of the calling party 110 or an associated computing device or display, such as a personal computer or personal digital assistant (PDA). The message document may include text, images or audio or any combination of the foregoing. As discussed herein, the present invention is particularly suitable for use with available and emerging Internet technologies, such as the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) or a similar Internet protocol for accessing documents, voice over IP (VoIP) or the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), described, for example, in M. Handley et al., “SIP: Session Initiation Protocol,” RFC 2543 (March 1999).
As discussed further below, the called party 130 can optionally specify one or more message generation rules that determine whether a message is sent to the calling party 110. In addition, the called party 130 can optionally specify one or more message content rules that determine the content of the message that is sent to the calling party 110. For example, a message generation rule can specify that a message should be sent to the calling party 110 only if the called party 130 is unavailable. A message content rule can indicate the content of the document based on various characteristics of the calling party or the call (or both). Similarly, a message generation rule for an IVR implementation can specify that a message should be sent to each calling party 110 with a list of menu options that are tailored to the calling party 110 or other properties of the call, such as the time of day or the location of the calling party 110.
While the present invention is illustrated below in conjunction with the processing of calls in an exemplary enterprise communication system, it is not limited to use with any particular configuration of system elements or communication processing application. Those skilled in the art will recognize that the disclosed techniques may be used in any communication system application in which it is desirable to provide enhanced messaging services to a calling party 110. Thus, the term “switch” as used herein should be understood to include a private-branch exchange (PBX) system, an enterprise switch, or other type of telecommunications system switch, as well as other types of processor-based communication control devices. The term “call” as used herein is intended to include not only incoming or outgoing telephone calls but also non-telephonic communications such as data transmissions, voice-over-IP, e-mail or facsimile.
[0018]FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram of an exemplary switch 120 incorporating features of the present invention. The switch 120 may be embodied, for example, as a DEFINITY® Enterprise Communication Service (ECS) communication system switch, available from Avaya Inc. of Basking Ridge, N.J., USA, as modified herein to provide the features and functions of the present invention. While the present invention is illustrated in the context of a SIP-enabled switch 120, other types of known switches may be utilized, as modified herein to support the features and functions of the present invention. In particular, such known switches must be extended to support the direction of a called party's document address identifier to the calling party 110 with a call in accordance with the present invention. The conventional aspects of such switches are well known in the art and therefore not described in detail herein. The switch 120 may be connected to one or more external endpoints, e.g., external terminals or system processing elements, via a network (not shown) or other suitable communication channel(s).
[0024]FIG. 3 illustrates the exchange of signals between the calling party 110 and the switch 120 in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 3, an exemplary dual tone multiple frequency (DTMF) signal 310 is transmitted from the calling party 110 to the switch 120. The DTMF signal 310 corresponds to the telephone number of the called party 130, as entered by the calling party 110 using the keypad of the telephone, in a known manner.
In addition, in accordance with the present invention, the switch 120 presents a message document address 320 to the calling party 110 that is a pointer or hyperlink to a message document containing a message for the calling party, such as a web page that may be accessed over the Internet. The presentation of the message document address 320 to the calling party 110 by the switch 120 can be conditioned upon the satisfaction of one or more rules, such as when the called party is unavailable or based on one or more predefined characteristics of the calling party or the call (or both). It is noted that the message document address 320 may be included in the signal by the telephone of the called party 130 or by the switch 120, as would be apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art.
According to another aspect of the present invention, the message document identified by the address 320 can be (i) a static document created, for example, by the called party 130 or someone on behalf of the called party 130, such as a system administrator of the called party 130; (ii) a default document created, for example, in accordance with a policy of the employer or telephone service provider of the called party 130 (for example, a message document created in accordance with a default policy may always include the name, telephone number, photograph, corporate identifier and company logo of the called party 130); or (iii) a dynamically generated document based on one or more rules. The dynamically generated document based on one or more rules may alter the content of the document based on various characteristics of the calling party 110, such as corporate affiliation or geographic location, or characteristics of the call, such as time of day.
[0027]FIG. 4 is a flow chart describing an exemplary enhanced message handling process 400 implemented by the switch 120 of FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 4, the switch 120 initially receives the destination number of the called party 130 during step 410. A test is performed during step 420 to determine if the telephone of the called party 130 identified by the received destination number is available. If it is determined during step 420 that the telephone of the called party 130 is available, then the telephone call is handled in a conventional manner during step 425.
If, however, it is determined during step 420 that the telephone of the called party 130 is not available, for example, if the telephone of the called party 130 is busy, then the switch 120 obtains the message document address 320 corresponding to the calling party 110 during step 430. As previously indicated, the message document address 320 may be stored by the called party 130 and appended to the signal 300 or may be retrieved by the switch 120, as would be apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art. Thereafter, the switch 120 sends the message document address 320 to the calling party 110, before program control terminates. The message document address may be, for example, a uniform resource locator (URL) identifying an Internet document that is accessed by the calling party 110 to obtain the desired message.
[0029]FIG. 5 illustrates the processing of the message document address 320 by the calling party 110. As shown in FIG. 5, the calling party 110 receives an incoming signal from the switch 120 that includes the message document address 320, in accordance with the present invention. The telephone unit of the calling party 110 retrieves the message document address 320 from the incoming signal and accesses the appropriate message document. In the exemplary implementation shown in FIG. 5, the calling party 110 sends an HTTP request 510 for the message document to a server 520 addressed by the message document address 320. The server provides an HTTP response 520 with the requested message document. Thereafter, the requested message document is rendered to the calling party 110, for example, on a display 540 associated with the telephone or another device of the calling party 110. In this manner, the calling party 110 obtains the URL specified by the called party 130 from the web server 520 specified in the URL (message document address 320) and displays the content of the URL to the calling party 110.
For example, the message document address 320 may be a URL, such as http://www.bankcorp.com/user_specific_IVR/customerA, that is resolved by a domain name server (DNS) to the server 520. The appropriate document is then provided to the calling party 110 in accordance with the HTTP protocol for presentation to the calling party 110, for example, on a display associated with the telephone or another device of the calling party 110. It is noted that while the exemplary embodiments described herein contemplate the use of textual or image-based message documents, the message documents may also be embodied using other media, such as audio, in addition to or instead of text or image information.