Patent ID: 7346662

Claim:
A method for delivering an indication of an email message's arrival, said method comprising: receiving the email message identifying at least an addressee; looking up the addressee in a database, the database associating multiple addressees to a shared Internet Protocol address; retrieving the shared Internet Protocol address; sending a message to the shared Internet Protocol address, the message identifying the addressee of the email message, and the message including instructions for particularly indicating the arrival of the message to the addressee from amongst the multiple addressees sharing the Internet Protocol address; sending an email address of a sender of the email message; retrieving a distinctive ring tone associated with the addressee from multiple ring tones associated with the shared Internet Protocol address, the distinctive ring tone selected by the addressee to provide a distinctive notification despite different addressees associated with the shared Internet Protocol address; and sending a signal to a directory number associated with the addressee to provide the distinctive notification of the email message's arrival.