Abstract:
Location enabled voice mail is described. Such capability can be provided by service providers to offer their customers a host of unique location based voice mail services of both an audio and video nature. By way of example, a first calling party may leave a voice mail message for a second called party at a first time. First location information for the calling device is obtained about the first time. Upon retrieving the voice mail message at a second time, the called party is provided with the location enabled voice mail services. For example, the called party may receive a map containing the location of the calling device at a first time plotted thereon.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
       [0001]     The present invention relates generally to improvements in the field of mobile communication, and, in particular, to systems and methods for providing location enabled voice mail.  
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0002]     Voice mail is an important business service in the world of telecommunication. Voice mail is provided to both wireline and wireless devices. Consumers have voice mail at work, at home, and on their mobile devices. Lucent Technologies Inc. of 600 Mountain Avenue, Murray Hill, NJ 07974, a provider of communications products and services, has developed a messaging server, Anypath® Messaging System (AMS) for wireline and wireless devices. The AMS allows service providers the ability to offer a complete range of unified communication features to subscribers. AMS allows for a common user experience across public switched telephone network (PSTN), 2G/2.5G/3G, internet protocol (IP) and converged networks. By deploying a messaging server such as the AMS, subscribers can access, retrieve, and manage content and information from any wireline or mobile phone, personal computer (PC), personal digital assistant (PDA), and the like.  
         [0003]     Location servers and accompanying software code such as Lucent Technologies&#39; iLocator product provide a location based service platform which supports custom location and presence based services such as alerting and tracking family, friends and enterprises while incorporating privacy controls.  
         [0004]     Voice mail is typically retrieved after some time has passed since the calling party left a voice mail message. In today&#39;s mobile culture, people are constantly on the go to meet work deadlines, to satisfy family obligations, and to squeeze in recreation or entertainment events. As the time interval increases between the time when a calling party left a message and the time when the called party or subscriber retrieves the message, the relevancy of the voice mail message may decrease and in some cases may be misleading.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0005]     Among its several aspects, the present invention recognizes that the capabilities of the aforementioned products can be advantageously combined and adapted as taught herein to provide a wide array of location enabled voice mail services as described further herein. While it is hard to envision all the creative uses that service providers may want to offer or mobile users may want from a location enabled voice system or service in accordance with the present invention, several illustrative examples are discussed below. With the present invention, a user could receive a location enabled voice mail service, such as a map containing both the previous and current location information of the calling party. The previous location being the location at the time the voice mail was left and the current location being the location at the time the voice mail was retrieved. Besides a map, the location enabled voice mail service may include a speech message, text message, or the like indicating the location of the calling party. Additionally, location enabled voice mail service indicating the previous and current locations of the calling party, or both could be conveyed to the party leaving the message. The map and messages may also contain previous and current location information of the called party. By providing such location information upon retrieval of a voice mail message, a subscriber may determine whether the retrieved voice mail message is still relevant, may deduce more relevant information not present in the voice mail message, or the like. A subscriber may also validate the expected location of the called party by receiving such location information when retrieving the corresponding voice mail message.  
         [0006]     For example, if two people are planning to meet at a ball game, the calling party may leave a voice mail message with the called party requesting confirmation on where to meet. As an alternative or in addition, the called party may set a preference in his or her voice mail account to report the location of the calling party at the time the voice mail message was left and the location of the calling party when the voice mail is received. This preference may be dependent on a calling party number, called party number, time of day, or a combination thereof. When the called party retrieves the voice mail message, the present invention may deliver a map indicating the previous and current location of the calling party. From this map, the called party can determine, for example, 1) if the calling party is waiting for a return message before heading to the ball park, 2) if the calling party is running tangential errands on his or her way to the ball park, and 3) how far the calling party has traveled since leaving the message. Furthermore, the called party may select a preference for the map to plot his or her current location to determine how far apart the two parties are currently.  
         [0007]     By way of another example, the teachings of the present invention allow employers to track remote employees who have responsibilities that involve being located at a client&#39;s site such as a delivery truck driver. When the delivery truck driver makes a delivery to a client, the driver would call a subscriber number and leave a voice mail message to confirm. The present invention can be utilized to provide a map or a voice or text message indicating the location of the truck driver when the call was made. The employer or supervisor may then retrieve the message and be delivered a map indicating where the truck driver was located at the time the message had been left allowing the employer or supervisor to verify that the truck driver actually made a delivery at an expected delivery time. Continuing with this example, the present invention may consolidate previous locations with each message left by a calling party. In this way, when the employer retrieves the latest voice mail from the calling party, a map indicating all the locations of the truck driver for that day will be plotted allowing the employer to track whether the truck driver made all of his or her deliveries on time. A similar approach may be employed to track remote service providers, such as phone installers or cable television repair personnel, appliance installers, or the like.  
         [0008]     To this end, the present invention addresses among its several aspects a method for providing a location enabled voice mail service comprising the steps of storing at a first time a voice mail message from a calling device of a first party for a called device of a second party, obtaining first location information for the calling device about the first time, retrieving the voice mail message at a second time, and providing said location enabled voice mail service as a function of the first location information.  
         [0009]     A more complete understanding of the present invention, as well as further features and advantages of the invention, will be apparent from the following Detailed Description and the accompanying drawings. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0010]      FIG. 1  illustrates an exemplary network system in accordance with the present invention.  
         [0011]      FIG. 2  shows an exemplary call flow between the network elements of  FIG. 1  to associate previous location information with a voice mail message at the time the voice mail message is left in accordance with the present invention.  
         [0012]      FIG. 3  shows an exemplary call flow between the network elements of  FIG. 1  at the time a voice mail message is retrieved to provide a personalized location specific multimedia message depending on the location of a called party in accordance with the present invention.  
         [0013]      FIG. 4  illustrates exemplary functional components of the location server of  FIG. 1  in accordance with the present invention.  
         [0014]      FIG. 5  shows a flowchart of a method for leaving location enabled voice mail in accordance with the present invention.  
         [0015]      FIG. 6  shows a flowchart of a method for retrieving location enabled voice mail in accordance with the present invention. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0016]     The present invention will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which several presently preferred embodiments of the invention are shown. This invention may, however, be embodied in various forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art.  
         [0017]     As will be appreciated by one of skill in the art, the present invention may be embodied as methods, systems, or computer readable media. Accordingly, aspects of the present invention may take the form of a hardware embodiment, a software embodiment or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects such as firmware. Furthermore, the present invention may take the form of a computer program on a computer-usable storage medium having computer-usable program code embodied in the medium. Any suitable computer readable medium may be utilized including hard disks, CD-ROMs, optical storage devices, flash memories, magnetic storage devices, or the like.  
         [0018]     Computer program code or “code” for carrying out operations according to the present invention may be written in an object oriented programming language such as JAVA®, Smalltalk, JavaScript®, Visual Basic®, TSQL, Perl, C, C++ or in various other programming languages. Software embodiments of the present invention do not depend on implementation with a particular programming language. Portions of the code may execute entirely on one or more systems utilized by a server in the network or a mobile device.  
         [0019]     The code may execute partly on one network server and partly on another network server or a mobile or wireless device in communication with the network server over a communications network. Regarding the former scenario,  FIG. 1  shows an exemplary system  100  for providing location enabled voice mail in accordance with the present invention. The system  100  includes an intelligent network (IN)  101  which provides a medium for establishing calls between mobile devices such as wireless devices  105   1 - 105   n , as well as, wired plain old telephone service (POTS) phones of all kinds such as POTS phones  127   1 - 127   n , with a voice mail system such as message server  140 . A mobile device may be a cellular or wireless phone, or other mobile device, such as an internet protocol (IP) phone or mobile network device which is mobile and communicates with multiple other users for which a location enabled voice mail might be considered valuable. When the mobile device is a wireless device, the system  100  includes a wireless network  110  and an intelligent services gateway (ISG)  150  such as Lucent Technologies&#39; MiLife® ISG. It should be noted that a mobile device including wireline devices such as POTS and IP phones may couple with IN network  101  through a PSTN, such as PSTN  125 , voice over internet protocol (VoIP) segment interface protocol (SIP) network, and the like.  
         [0020]     The wireless network  110  is coupled to a set of intelligent network (IN) devices including the ISG  150 , the messaging server  140  such as Lucent Technologies&#39; AMS modified in accordance with the teachings of the invention, a messaging database  120 , and a location server  160 , such as Lucent Technologies&#39; iLocator server modified in accordance with the teachings of the invention.  
         [0021]     ISG  150  translates queries made in one communication protocol to another communication protocol. A suitable intelligent services gateway is a parlay/OSA (open services access) standard compliant network element that exposes network capabilities to end user applications. It provides a single entry point regardless of the different flavors of wireless networks such as time division multiple access (TDMA) digital, code division multiple access (CDMA) or universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) networks. It also adheres to different wireless standards such as location interoperability forum (LIF) to support querying of location information from the location related elements.  
         [0022]     The location server  160  runs server code which provides a location and presence based track and alert service. Mobile devices, such as wireless devices  105   1 - 105   n  and  115   1 - 115   n , may run client code to receive notifications of the presence and/or location of another wireless device. Location server  160  will be described in further detail in connection with  FIG. 4 . It will be recognized that the number of intelligent network devices and mobile switching centers which may be used in intelligent network  101  is not limited to the exemplary ones represented in  FIG. 1 .  
         [0023]     While devices  105   1 - 105   n  are shown as wireless device, it should be recognized that many aspects of the present invention apply to a wide variety of other mobile devices capable of initiating or receiving telephone calls, as well as, the full range of wireline devices.  
         [0024]     Wireless network  110  provides wireless devices voice and data connectivity to the intelligent network  101 . Wireless network  110  typically connect devices which include a function of acting as a service switching point (SSP) which allows the wireless network  110  to communicate using signaling system 7 (SS/7) signaling protocol. In particular, integrated services digital network user part (ISDNUP) messaging is used to initiate a call. However, other protocols may also be used such as ISDN messaging protocols, and the like.  
         [0025]     The messaging server  140  contains an intelligent database service that offers large database capabilities. In particular, messaging server  140  may couple to a messaging database  120  which stores predetermined profiles of subscribers in accordance with the teachings of the present invention. A profile may include subscriber preferences such as rules for sending a map indicating the location of the calling party when a voice mail message is left also referred to as the previous location information. Additionally or alternatively, the profile may include rules to indicate the location of the calling party when the voice mail message is retrieved also referred to as current location information. Similarly, the profile may include rules to indicate the previous location or current location of the called party, also known as the subscriber.  
         [0026]     These rules may vary depending on particular calling numbers, the time of day a voice mail is left, the time of day the voice mail is retrieved, or any combination thereto. Additionally, the subscriber profile may also contain rules to send a tailored multimedia message to the subscriber which is dependent on the previous or current location information. The tailored multimedia message includes a map, a voice message, a text message, or any combination thereto.  
         [0027]     For example, a subscriber may configure his or her profile to enable or block certain calling parties from receiving a tailored multimedia message. The profile may classify certain calling numbers into different categories and have different rules applied to the different categories. For example, the profile may include categories for co-workers, family, personal friends, or the like. Rules may be specified to enable or disable sending tailored multimedia messages to callers calling from numbers in these categories. Additionally, rules may be specified to enable or disable sending tailored multimedia messages to the voice mail subscriber. It should be noted that although these rules may be specified in a profile, the same rules may be additionally or alternatively specified in a voice prompt when a calling party is leaving a voice mail message or when the subscriber retrieves his or her voice mail. The messaging server  140  also may suitably execute user preference application code which applies the rules specified in a profile in response to a query.  
         [0028]      FIG. 2  shows an exemplary call flow between the network elements of  FIG. 1  to associate previous location information with a voice mail message at the time the voice mail message is left in accordance with the present invention. This call flow  200  is shown implemented in conjunction with the location server  160  of  FIG. 1  to provide a tailored multimedia message depending on the previous location of the cellular wireless phone of a calling party. It will be recognized that call flow  200  can be readily implemented with other messaging and location servers. The approach of call flow  200  incorporates a comprehensive set of network operational scenarios that account for network element failures, called party roaming outside the network, and the like. It should be noted that for ease of illustration and to focus the discussion on the invention, message flows to establish a call between the calling party and the messaging server are not illustrated, as they are well known. When a messaging server  140  receives a request from a calling party, for example, the user of wireless device  105   1 , to leave a voice mail message for a called party, for example, the user of wireless device  115   1  it queries the location server  160  with a get location query  221 . The get location query  221  contains the calling number, the called number, or both, depending on the preferences specified in the subscriber&#39;s profile or the subscribers&#39; profiles where both parties are subscribers. Although the subscriber&#39;s profile is typically stored on messaging database  120 , it may be stored on any number of databases in or accessible from the intelligent network  101 . While the exemplary case of a subscriber profile is discussed, it will be understood that the caller checking voice mail may be given a voice prompt which prompts, for example, “if you would like to know the location of the calling party at the time this voice mail was left, press ‘0’. If you would like to know the current location of the calling party, press ‘1’.” A fee could then be charged for the service.  
         [0029]     Continuing with the exemplary call flow, the location server  160  may suitably employ well known tri-lateration based techniques to compute the locations using signal measurements from three or more base stations, for example. Alternatively, where a mobile device is connecting to the network with a Wi-fi® standard or Bluetooth® standard connection to a hot spot connection point or the like, the phone is registered at the connection point, and as the location of the connection point is known to the system, it can be readily determined that the mobile device is in proximity to the connection point and this location information can be utilized. Locations of wireline phones can be stored in accessible memory and looked up. While several examples are given above as to how location information can be obtained, it will be recognized that other techniques may also be employed.  
         [0030]     The location server  160 , in turn, queries ISG  150  with a get location query  223  to get the location information. In the depicted example of  FIG. 2 , both the location information for the calling party and the called party are requested. The ISG  150  converts query  223  from a protocol used in the intelligent network  101  such as LIF protocol to a second protocol used over the wireless network  110 . Since location information is requested for both the calling party and the called party, the location server  160 , utilizing the calling and called numbers, queries its database of records to retrieve the location information for the devices corresponding to the parties, such as wireless devices  105   1  and  115   1 , for example. To retrieve up to date locations for wireless devices  105   1  and  115   1 , the location server  160  may have to issue queries  225  and  227  through ISG  150  and, thus, through the wireless network  110 . The ISG  150  converts query  223  from a protocol used in the intelligent network  101  to a second protocol used over the wireless network  110 . The location of the parties are returned to ISG  150  from the wireless network  110  and forwarded to the location server  140  in a send message  229 . The returned location may contain a raw location of the wireless devices  105   1  and  115   1  specified in latitude and longitude, for example, or may contain the geographic address such as “10 Main St., Murray Hill, New Jersey.” 
         [0031]     The location server  160  forwards the location information to the messaging server  140 . The messaging server  140  saves the location information to the messaging database  120  as previous location information for subsequent retrieval which will be discussed further in connection with the discussion of  FIG. 3 .  
         [0032]      FIG. 3  shows an exemplary call flow  300  between the network elements of  FIG. 1  at the time a voice mail message is retrieved to provide a personalized location specific multimedia message depending on the location of a called party in accordance with the present invention. A subscriber, utilizing wireless device  115   1 , requests review of his or her pending voice mails from the messaging server  140 . Subscribers with phones such as wireless device  115   1  that have multimedia messaging service (MMS) capability could advantageously receive an MMS message indicating the previous or current location information of the calling party of a left voice mail message. For example, an MMS message may include a picture of Times Square if the calling party is in New York City, a picture of the White House if the calling party is in Washington D.C., or simply a map of the current location of the calling party.  
         [0033]     The message server  140  may provide options to the subscriber to retrieve a map showing the current and previous locations of the calling and called parties or a multimedia message communicating the current and previous locations of the calling and called parties involved in his or her voice mail message. Additionally or alternatively, a subscriber profile in messaging database  120  may store the subscriber&#39;s preferences with regard to automatically retrieving a map if the voice mail message is from a particular calling party number. In this case, the message server  140 , executing user preference application code, retrieves a subscriber profile corresponding to the subscriber and applies the rules stored in the profile for generating an appropriate MMS message. For example, the subscriber profile may trigger a rule to send speech or text message indicating the previous and current locations of the calling party or a map containing the previous and current locations of the calling party.  
         [0034]     In the exemplary call flow  300 , the subscriber requests a map containing the current locations of both the calling and called party involved in the voice mail message being retrieved. The messaging server  140  queries the location server  160  with a get location query  321  for both the calling number and called number.  
         [0035]     Location server  160 , utilizing the calling and called numbers, queries its database of records to retrieve the location information for the wireless device corresponding to the parties, such as wireless devices  105   1  and  115   1 , for example. To retrieve the locations, the location server  160  may have to issue queries  325  and  327  through ISG  150  and, thus, through the wireless network  110  to get up to date location information for these devices. The ISG  150  converts query  323  from a protocol used in the intelligent network  101  to a second protocol used over the wireless network  110 . The location of the parties are returned to ISG  150  from the wireless network  110  and forwarded to the location server  160  in a send message  328 . The returned location may contain a raw location of the wireless devices  105   1  and  115   1  specified in latitude and longitude, for example, or may contain the geographic address such as “600 Mountain Ave., Murray Hill, New Jersey.” 
         [0036]     Upon receipt of the current location information, the location server  160  also requests a map corresponding to the location returned for the calling party by issuing a getMap message  329  through ISG  150 . The map may be retrieved from another intelligent peripheral connected to intelligent network  101  or may be retrieved by a service on the Internet accessed through ISG  150  as illustrated. The map is retrieved through ISG  150  and sent to the location server in a send message  330 . The location server  160  sends the location of the parties and the retrieved map to the messaging server  140  in a send message  331 . It should be noted that the function of retrieving a map based on a retrieved location may alternatively be performed by the messaging server  140 .  
         [0037]     The messaging server  140  retrieves the previous location information of the calling and called parties stored in the messaging server database  120  in a retrieve request message  333 . Upon receipt of the previous information, the messaging server  140  plots the previous and current locations of the calling and called parties on the map and delivers the map in an MMS deliver message  335  to wireless device  115   1 . Since a map is requested in exemplary flow  300 , the retrieved map will be centered on the current location of the calling party, along with the previous location of the calling party. Optionally, the map may indicate the current and previous location of the called party relative to the calling party&#39;s current location. In exemplary call flow  300 , the subscriber party devices  115   1 - 115   n  will have a display to display a map, picture, or text keyed to the location of the called party.  
         [0038]     Query  321  can be initiated directly to the ISG  150  or to the location server  160 . A direct interface to ISG  150  is suitable when only the location of the called party needs to be determined. However, when a location based MMS message, for example, a map of the current location of the called party is to be delivered, it is desirable to interface directly with location server  160  which supports this functionality. In general, the connection to the location server is used when the users are known to be on the same network with a similar wireless technology. In any other instance, it is recommended that the calls flow through the ISG which provides a protocol transparency for end user applications.  
         [0039]     Further details of a suitable architecture  400  of a location server  160  interfacing with ISG  150  and messaging server  140  are shown in  FIG. 4 . The location server  160  includes several software components including a client renderer  410 , a location manager  420 , a profile manager  430 , server logic  440 , and a proxy server  415 . The location server  160  running code according to the teachings of the invention provides this location information by interfacing with the ISG  150 . The location server  160  may be suitably implemented as an application host environment (AHE) kind of hardware. The location server  160  may be a front end to ISG  150  or Internet data servers  450  to obtain the location plus maps and other information. The location server  160  communicates with Internet protocol multi-media subsystem (IMS) elements  460 . The MMS elements may include the ISG  150 , a super distributed home location register (SDHLR) user profile information server  462 , location servers  464 , and enhanced business services provisioning  466 . The location server  160  also communicates with the messaging sever  140  as described above. The messaging server retrieves pending voice mail messages from the messaging server database  120 .  
         [0040]     Client code  470  executes on a wireless device such as wireless device  1151 . As addressed above, the present location enabled approach is not just limited to cellular networks, but can also obtain the user location from a nearby Wi-fi® access point bypassing the call flow to the ISG  150 . Once the current location of the calling party and a corresponding map is obtained by interfacing with the ISG  150  or location server  160  as described above or otherwise, the messaging server  140  retrieves previous location information and consolidates the previous and current location information on the obtained map. The messaging server  140  then delivers the map to the subscriber with the location information plotted.  
         [0041]     Location server  160  can also play the role of reverse geocoding. In other words, location server  160  can be utilized to translate a raw location of a called user, specified in latitude and longitude, obtained from an ISG, such as ISG  150 , to a geographic address, such as “Murray Hill, New Jersey”. This geographic address is then passed back to the messaging server  140  and is converted to synthetic speech which is then sent to the subscriber when he or she retrieves voice mail.  
         [0042]      FIG. 5  shows a flowchart of a method  500  for leaving location enabled voice mail in accordance with the present invention. At step  510 , a voice mail message is left by a calling party and stored for subsequent retrieval by a called party. At step  520 , location information of the calling party, the called party, or both are obtained. This location information obtained at the time of leaving a voice mail message is also referred to as previous location information. At step  530 , the previous location is optionally stored. Step  530  is optional because the present invention may utilize the saved voice mail to trigger the look up of a map plotting only current information of the calling and called party. at least two categories of calling parties are optionally established.  
         [0043]      FIG. 6  shows a flowchart of a method  600  for retrieving location enabled voice mail in accordance with the present invention. At step  610 , a subscriber retrieves the voice mail message left in method  500 . At step  620 , current location information of the calling party, called party, or both which are associated with the retrieved voice mail message is obtained. At step  630 , the previous location information stored in method  500  is optionally retrieved. At step  640 , the current location of the parties in the form of a map, text message, audio message, or any combination thereto are delivered to the subscriber.  
         [0044]     While the present invention has been disclosed mainly in a presently preferred context of cellular or wireless phones, it will be recognized that the present teachings are applicable to a wide array of mobile network accessible devices such as internet protocol (IP) phones, portable game devices, or the like, which can be used at various locations and which could be advantageously located using the present teachings.