Patent ID: 6961137

Claim:
A method of controlling a network facsimile communication system including Internet fax devices and a server, the Internet fax devices having both a capability of exchanging fax images over a public switched telephone network PSTN and a capability of exchanging messages over the Internet, the server having a file transfer capability and provided on the Internet, the method comprising the steps of: causing a called Internet fax device to send, when an incoming call from the PSTN is detected, an Internet fax indication to a calling Internet fax device, the indication indicating that the called device has an Internet fax capability; causing the calling Internet fax device to send, after the Internet fax indication is received, an universal resource locator URL, indicating a location of the server on the Internet as a destination of a fax image, to the called Internet fax device, to release the call from the PSTN, and to transmit the fax image to the server corresponding to the URL; and causing the called Internet fax device to access the server on the Internet by using the received URL, so that the called Internet fax device receives the fax image from the server.