Patent ID: 8254538

Claim:
A method of delivering fax messages, the method comprising: receiving, at an initial submission gateway device of an Internet fax system, a request to deliver a fax message to one or more third parties; storing, by the initial submission gateway device, one or more source files associated with the request and representing at least a portion of content to be included as part of the fax message to a shared storage area of the Internet fax system accessible by a plurality of imaging systems and a plurality of fax processing resources of the Internet fax system; selecting, by the initial submission gateway device, an imaging system of the plurality of imaging systems to convert the one or more source files into a digital representation suitable for faxing; storing, by the initial submission gateway device, a work request on a centralized work queue within a database of the Internet fax system accessible by the plurality of imaging systems, the work request containing information identifying the selected imaging system; polling, by the selected imaging system, the centralized work queue to identify whether any pending work requests exist for the selected imaging system; responsive to identifying the work request, converting, by the selected imaging system, the one or more source files into the digital representation, associating the digital representation with an outbound fax job and causing the fax message to be delivered to the one or more third parties by submitting the outbound fax job to a fax modem of the plurality of fax processing resources; determining, by a private branch exchange (PBX), whether a specific caller ID number has been requested for the outbound fax job; and if said determining so indicates, then presenting the specific caller ID number on an outgoing call leg of a call conveying the fax message to a third party of the one or more third parties.