Abstract:
A system and method for an Enhanced Analog Telephone Adapter (E-ATA) that scans and converts outbound faxes, converts the faxes into a text readable document, and then looks up either a phone and/or fax number(s) in the document and extracts the phone number and cross references this number to an email address. This email address is then used to transmit the document to the destination email address.

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0001]    This application is entitled to a claim of priority for a provisional application No. 61/566,857 filed on Dec. 5, 2011, entitled, “Systems and Methods for the Distribution of Electronic Messages”, by Mike Olizewski, the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference as if set forth in its entirety for all purposes. 
     
    
     BACKGROUND 
       [0002]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0003]    This invention relates to computer telephony communications, specifically a method to more efficiently and reliably deliver facsimile documents via electronic mail in general, and by using an Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) in conjunction with the facsimile documents in particular. 
         [0004]    2. Description of the Related Art 
         [0005]    The modern computer telephony environment continues to evolve while requiring support for pre-existing devices and mechanisms for processing and transporting large amounts of fax data from location to location in a secure, reliable and efficient manner. The communication of two distant devices and the ability to deliver large amount of legal fax data first existed in the PSTN environment where voice calls were the main consumer and fax or data communication minor consumers. 
         [0006]    Even through all of the technological advancements and various forms of moving large amounts of data, the physical process of transmitting large amounts of legal data continues to be with the use of “scan and send” fax devices. Even with the variations of sending faxes without the physical fax machine, every company still has and maintains fax machines for regular use by their employees, customers, and vendors. Even with the increased use of email, ftp, web postings, and other data accessible points the preferred legal means of transmitting large amounts of data via fax remains in high use throughout the world for many years to come. 
         [0007]    The last decade has also created a large number of “web searchable” databases that contain information that will allow the mapping of a destination fax number to an email address. These “web searchable” databases are found on any number of social media sites, such as Facebook and/or Linkedin. Similarly, private databases exist that can match an outbound fax number with an email address. 
         [0008]    Similarly, there are situations where a person that is sending a fax would like to have a copy of the fax sent by electronic mail to the recipient. For instance, the recipient may not remember or be aware to the recipients email address and at the same time be sending the fax on a public fax machine (e.g. a hotel fax, a library fax, etc.) without the ability to “look up” the email address. Further, the public fax machine may not be located near a computer and/or a scanner. 
         [0009]    Improvements in technology have solved the problem with transmission of faxes over IP networks using devices known as Analog Telephone Adapters (ATA&#39;s). A typical ATA provides a Fax over IP Connection (FOIP) that eliminates the problem with latency on fax lines. A typical ATA is implemented by AudioCodes in their HTTPS Fax Enabled MP-202B which allows the connection of legacy fax machines to VoIP services. ATA&#39;s are typically “black box” services that do not perform any processing on the faxes that are sent and/or received. 
         [0010]    Therefore there is a need to provide an improved fax routing system that scans an inbound and/or outbound fax document for telephone numbers, matches those telephone numbers to an external database of electronic mail addresses, and then utilizes those retrieved electronic mail address to forward the scanned document. 
       PRIOR ART REFERENCES 
       [0011]    The prior art for general fax-to-fax document transmission is well known to those skilled in the art. 
         [0012]    Systems for receiving fax transmissions from PSTN and transmitting such documents via electronic mail have been well known in the arts and are supplied by such companies as FaxBack, Inc. (Tualatin, Oreg.). Systems also exist for connection of legacy fax machines to the internet and are well known in the arts. 
         [0013]    Prior art for the processing the text on documents received by fax machines is well known in the arts. 
       SUMMARY 
       [0014]    The present inventive subject matter overcomes problems in the prior art by providing a method of sending a fax document by electronic mail having a fax document is received by and processed by an Enhanced ATA (E-ATA) and converted into an electronic document; storing the FAX as an electronic image processing the FAX image and extracting a set of character data by optical character processing to extract a multiplicity of telephone numbers; cross referencing the extract numbers to an multiplicity of email addresses; creating a new email; attaching the FAX image to an email; and sending the email to a multiplicity of recipients. 
         [0015]    The method of sending fax documents by electronic mail, said apparatus further having the method of cross referencing the extract numbers to an multiplicity of email addresses selected from a group having and internal lookup table; a search engine; and a private database. 
         [0016]    Also described is an apparatus for sending fax documents by electronic mail, said apparatus having an enhanced ATA; said enhanced ATA with a telephone connection, said telephone connection capable of operating with a fax machine that can communicate with a PSTN network; a data parser, said data parser capable of returned the destination phone number; a cross referencing database, said cross referencing database capable of returning a destination email address; an email agent, said email agent capable of creating and sending an email to the destination email address. The apparatus for sending fax documents by electronic mail, said apparatus further having the ability to extract character data is extracted from the phone number entered on the dial pad. The apparatus for sending fax documents by electronic mail, said apparatus further having the ability to extract character data by OCR from the FAX document and using that character data to determine the email address of the intended recipient by a lookup table. 
         [0017]    These and other embodiments are described in more detail in the following detailed descriptions and the figures. 
         [0018]    The foregoing is not intended to be an exhaustive list of embodiments and features of the present inventive subject matter. Persons skilled in the art are capable of appreciating other embodiments and features from the following detailed description in conjunction with the drawings. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0019]    Those skilled in the arts will recognize that the processing of sending a fax may use a dedicated fax machine, a computer system that emulates a fax machine, or an interface through the internet that further emulates a dedicated fax machine. The send fax document may or may not be realized in physical form (e.g. hardcopy). 
           [0020]      FIG. 1  shows a prior art diagram of the classic model of fax to fax transmission a PSTN. 
           [0021]      FIG. 2  shows a high-level basic diagram of the fax networking system with an ATA. 
           [0022]      FIG. 3  shows the high-level basic diagram of the improved fax routing system. 
           [0023]      FIG. 4A  depicts a flowchart of the preferred embodiment of the improved fax routing system. 
           [0024]      FIG. 4B  depicts a flowchart of the alternate embodiment of the improved fax routing system. 
           [0025]      FIG. 4C  is a flowchart of the alternate embodiment for processing the fax document. 
           [0026]      FIG. 5  depicts a document flow diagram of the improved fax routing system 
       
    
    
     LIST OF REFERENCE CHARACTERS 
       [0000]    
       
           110  sending fax machine 
           120  receiving fax machine 
           130  PSTN 
           150  send fax document 
           210  ATA 
           220  TLS (SSL) Proxy 
           230  internet 
           310  inbound fax document 
           330  PSTN to IP Gateway 
           360  Enhanced ATA (E-ATA) 
           430  Optical Character Processing 
           440  extracted phone numbers 
           450  email 
           450   a  Internal Lookup Table 
           450   b  Search Engine 
           450   c  Private Database 
           540  telephone line 
           570  electronic mail 
       
     
       DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0045]    Representative embodiments according to the inventive subject matter are shown in  FIGS. 1-5 , wherein similar features share common reference numerals. 
         [0046]    As shown in  FIG. 1 , the basic functionality demonstrating the connectivity of a sending fax device  110 , through a public switch telephone network PSTN  130 , directly connected to the receiving fax device  120 . This model represents the legacy point-to-point system transmitting fax data. 
         [0047]    Representative embodiments according to the inventive subject matter are shown in  FIGS. 1-5 , wherein similar features share common reference numerals. 
         [0048]    Now referring to  FIG. 1  which shows a basic diagram of a typical switched based public telephone network (PSTN) system  100  with a sending fax machine  110  connected to the PSTN  130  (“Public Switched Telephone Network”) which is further connected to the receiving fax machine  120 . The method of faxing a document generally consists of inserting a send fax document  150  into the sending fax machine  110 . The send fax document  150  is scanned by the sending fax machine  110 . The sending fax machine transmits the scanned document to the receiving fax machine  120  which then prints out a received facsimile document  160 . Those skilled in the arts will immediately recognize the many variations of this traditional model for sending and receiving faxes, for example, the fax machines can send and receive multiple documents. The documents are sent and received by optical scanning, caching the scanned documents in the memory of the fax machine, and then sending the document from the fax machine memory. 
         [0049]      FIG. 2  shows a configuration of the prior art using an ATA  210 . The ATA  210  provides a secure and reliable HTTPS connections between a sending fax machine  110  and the internet  230  via a TLS (SSL) Proxy  220 . The ATA  210  further emulates the features of a PSTN  130  so that the individual does not experience problems using the fax machine. This ATA  210  “plug compatibility” reduces user installation and operational costs. 
         [0050]    Now referring to  FIG. 3  which depicts an embodiment of the inventive subject matter. An inbound fax document  310  is sent via a sending fax machine  110  that is connect to a PSTN  130  which is further connected to the internet  230  via a PSTN to IP Gateway  330 . Specific implementations of the PSTN to IP Gateway  330  may consist of a NET SatisFAXtion Enterprise &amp; Multi-site Edition Fax Server System (see http://www.faxback.com/Products/EnterpriseFaxServers.html) connected to a SIP T.38 Compatible Media Gateway. 
         [0051]    Now referring to  FIG. 4A  which provides for a method of processing and distributing fax documents  410 . The first step in processing  410  is that a fax document is received by and processed by an Enhanced ATA (E-ATA)  360  and converted into an electronic document. The FAX is typically stored as an electronic image document that is any one of a number of standard formats, such as TIFF or PDF. The next processing step  420  consists of the software that can process the FAX image so that character data can be extracted by Optical Character Processing  430 . The extracted character data is parsed to locate one or more extracted phone numbers  440 . These extracted phone numbers  440  are then cross referenced to an email address  450 . Several types of lookup databases can be utilized for the purpose of cross referencing, such as: i)  450   a  Internal Lookup Table; ii)  450   b  Search Engine (Google, Yahoo, etc); and iii) from a  450   c  Private Database. 
         [0052]    Now referring to  FIG. 4B  which refers to an alternate embodiment of the novel method for the distribution of fax documents. The first step in processing  410  is that a fax document is received by and processed by an Enhanced ATA (E-ATA)  360  and converted into an electronic document. The FAX is typically stored as an electronic image document that is any one of a number of standard formats, such as TIFF or PDF. The next processing step  420  consists of the software that can process the FAX image so that character data can be extracted by Optical Character Processing  430 . The extracted character data is parsed from the Extracted Phone Number from the Dial Pad  425 . The extracted phone numbers  440  are then cross referenced to an email  450 . Several types of lookup databases can be utilized, such as: i)  450   a  Internal Lookup Table; ii)  450   b  Search Engine (Google, Yahoo, etc); and iii) from a  450   c  Private Database. The next processing step  460  takes the extracted phone number from the enhanced ATA  360  composes an email with the attached electronic document(s). 
         [0053]    Now referring to  FIG. 4C  which refers to an alternate embodiment first step in processing  410  is that a fax document is received by and processed by an Enhanced ATA (E-ATA)  360  and converted into an electronic document. The FAX is typically stored as an electronic image document that is any one of a number of standard formats, such as TIFF or PDF. The next processing step  420  consists of the software that can process the FAX image so that character data can be extracted by Optical Character Processing  430 . The extracted character data is parsed from the Extracted Phone Number from the Dial Pad  425 . The extracted phone numbers  440  are then cross referenced to an email  450 . Several types of lookup databases can be utilized, such as: i)  450   a  Internal Lookup Table; ii)  450   b  Search Engine (Google, Yahoo, etc); and iii) from a  450   c  Private Database. The next processing step  460  takes the extracted phone number from the enhanced ATA  360  composes an email with the attached electronic document(s). If one or more matches are returned from the cross reference, it is “echoed” to the fax machine in terms of a fax document. The user can then select the match  464  by entering in a number which is “captured” by the ATA. The matched number  464  is then indexed to the extracted email which is used to transfer the document. The next processing step  470  involves the enhanced ATA sending the extracted fax document to recipients with fax attachment as attached to the email. 
         [0054]    Now referring to  FIG. 5  which demonstrates the flow of the facsimile documents to electronic mail documents. The facsimile document  510  contains text which includes and email address  520  and a telephone number. This document is inserted and scanned into the fax machine  530 . These documents are transmitted on the telephone line  540  to an Enhanced ATA (E-ATA)  360 . The Enhanced ATA (E-ATA)  360  transfers the document to the internet  230  by converting the document to a format appropriate for electronic mail  570 . 
         [0055]    Persons skilled in the art will recognize that many modifications and variations are possible in the details, materials, and arrangements of the parts and actions which have been described and illustrated in order to explain the nature of this inventive concept and that such modifications and variations do not depart from the spirit and scope of the teachings and claims contained therein. 
         [0056]    All patent and non-patent literature cited herein is hereby incorporated by references in its entirety for all purposes. 
         [0057]    Persons skilled in the art will recognize that many modifications and variations are possible in the details, materials, and arrangements of the parts and actions which have been described and illustrated in order to explain the nature of this inventive concept and that such modifications and variations do not depart from the spirit and scope of the teachings and claims contained therein. 
         [0058]    All patent and non-patent literature cited herein is hereby incorporated by references in its entirety for all purposes.