Patent ID: 7454009

Claim:
A method for activating a distinctive ring-tone comprising the steps of: extracting caller identifying data from an incoming phone call to a call recipient; comparing said caller identifying data to data in a caller list; determining whether said caller is authorized by the call recipient to activate a distinctive ring-tone based upon said comparison; activating a distinctive ring-tone if said caller is authorized and if a request to activate a distinctive ring-tone by the caller can be detected in said incoming phone call; activating a different ring tone if said caller is not authorized or if said request to activate a distinctive ring-tone by the caller cannot be detected in said incoming phone call, and activating another distinctive ring-tone for calls received from callers in an additional list of callers responsive to detecting an incoming phone call from a caller in said additional list in which a distinctive ring-tone has been requested, wherein said additional list of callers comprising individual callers each having a level of authorization which varies both from an ordinary caller and a caller listed in said list of callers authorized to activate a distinctive ring-tone.