Patent ID: 7602901

Claim:
In a network having a source node, a network node and a destination node, wherein the destination node is equipped with a ringtone-generation engine to generate a ringtone, wherein the ringtone comprises at least one audible tone, a method for providing an audible calling party identification comprising: the destination node receiving from the network node information for producing a ringtone, wherein the information is originated toward the destination node in response to the source node initiating a call to the destination node, wherein the information comprises a sequence of characters, wherein the sequence of characters comprises a unique set of characters defining textual calling party identification information; the destination node generating the ringtone using its ringtone-generation engine and the information, wherein the destination node includes a mapping for converting the information into a ringtone, and wherein the step of the destination node generating the ringtone comprises the ringtone-generation engine generating the ringtone by applying the mapping to the information, wherein applying the mapping to the information comprises referring to the mapping to respectively convert each of a plurality of individual characters of the sequence to a corresponding tonal instance comprising at least one of (i) a single musical note, (ii) multiple musical notes, (iii) a musical chord, (iv) scales and (v) melodies, so as to thereby establish corresponding tonal instances, and wherein the step of the destination node generating the ringtone comprises the ringtone-generation engine generating the ringtone by converting all of the characters of the sequence to tones so as to generate a unique ringtone; and the destination node providing the ringtone as the audible calling party identification by playing out at least the established tonal instances.