Patent ID: 7230745

Claim:
A method for an automated fax transmission system to allow a human that receives an attempted transmission of a fax document to interactively control delivery of the fax document, the method comprising: receiving an indication of a fax document to be transmitted; determining a telephone number that is associated with a destination fax machine at a receiving side to which the fax document is to be transmitted; initiating an attempt to transmit the fax document to the destination fax machine by using the determined telephone number to establish a telephone connection; determining that the established telephone connection is with a human at the receiving side; and automatically and in response to the determining that the established telephone connection is with a human, providing a spoken message to the human over the established telephone connection that indicates at least one delivery option for the fax document; receiving from the human over the established telephone connection an indication of a selection of at least one of the indicated delivery options; and attempting to deliver the fax document in accordance with the selected delivery options, so that the human recipient of the attempt to transmit the fax document can interactively control the delivery of the fax document.