Patent ID: RE44293

Claim:
A mobile communication terminal, comprising: a time monitor that detects the time that an incoming call signal is received from an originating terminal, said incoming call signal including caller ID information; a caller ID storage device that stores preselected caller ID information and associates specific call answering message information with each stored caller ID, wherein at least one caller ID has associated therewith different call answering messages based on the time that said incoming call signal is received; a call answering message storage device for storing call answering messages associated with specific call answering message information stored in said caller ID storage device, and a preset call answering message not associated with any call answering message information in said caller ID storage device; and a call answering message selector that receives an incoming call signal caller ID and receives from said time monitor the time that the incoming call signal is received, determines whether said incoming call signal caller ID is stored in said caller ID storage device, and if so whether different call answering message information is stored for said incoming call signal caller ID based on the time that said incoming call is received, retrieves a call answering message from said call answering message storage device based on the results of said determinations, and outputs said retrieved call answering message when a user of said mobile communication terminal has failed to answer said incoming call; whereby incoming calls for the same user of said mobile communication terminal are capable of receiving different call answering messages based on the received caller ID, and the time that the incoming call from a particular caller as identified by said caller ID is received.