Patent ID: 8705709

Claim:
A method implemented by one or more computing devices in a visual voicemail system, the method comprising: receiving, by the one or more computing devices, a configuration file, wherein the configuration file includes one or more identifiers of a user device model or application that performs automatic retries to the visual voicemail system; receiving, by the one or more computing devices, voicemail notification messages indicating voicemails are available for a user of the visual voicemail system; distributing, by the one or more computing devices, the voicemail notification messages to a network device; receiving, by the one or more computing devices, an indication of a backlog processing requests for the visual voicemail system; stopping, by the one or more computing devices and based on the indication, distributing the voicemail notification messages to the network device; receiving, by the one or more computing devices and from a user device, a request to access to the visual voicemail system; sending, by the one or more computing devices and to the user device, a denial-of-service message when the request includes one of the one or more identifiers and when the request exceeds a threshold criteria for requests from the user device, wherein the denial-of-service message prevents the user device from sending another request; receiving, by the one or more computing devices and after the stopping, another indication that the backlog processing requests for the visual voicemail system no longer exists; and resuming, by the one or more computing devices and based on the other indication, distributing the voicemail notification messages to the network device.