Research in Motion Corporation

Blackberry Corporation

Ian Harris

William Daniel Willey

Adrian Buckley

Raymond Paul Vander Veen

Raymond Vander Veen

Eniko Sokondar

A voicemail system apparatus produces a voicemail notification message corresponding to a voicemail message received and saved at a voicemail system, and causes the voicemail notification message to be sent to a mobile device. Subsequently, the apparatus causes a voicemail deletion notification message to be sent to the mobile device, where the voicemail deletion notification message indicates that the voicemail message will be deleted by the voicemail system. In response to expiration of a voicemail message time expiration period associated with the voicemail message, the apparatus deletes the voicemail message at the voicemail system. On the other hand, prior to expiration of the voicemail message time expiration period, and in response to receiving a save command from the mobile device for resaving the voicemail message, the apparatus saves the voicemail message at the voicemail system and updates the voicemail message time expiration period.

Methods and apparatus for reliable voicemail message deletion alerts at mobile communication devices

In one illustrative example, when a message forwarding function is enabled for a mobile communication device which operates in a wireless communication network, an address (e.g. an MSISDN) of the mobile device is assigned to 'virtual mobile equipment' in the wireless network. The equipment registers with the wireless network with respect to the address, and stores an association in memory between the address and an alternate address of an alternate communication device. Subsequently, the equipment receives a short message having a destination address that matches the address. In response, the equipment forwards the short message to the alternate address for delivery to the alternate device (e.g. a mobile or server) based on the stored association. When the message forwarding function is disabled for and/or by the mobile device, the address of the mobile device is deassigned from the equipment, so that the mobile device is again able to receive short messages having destination addresses that match the address.

Methods and apparatus for use in forwarding short messages for mobile communication devices

A first voicemail notification message corresponding to a voicemail message associated with a voicemail system is received at a mobile device. The first voicemail notification message includes a first voicemail message time expiration value which is stored in memory. If an expiration of the first expiration value occurs prior to a predetermined event (e.g. an earlier saving or deleting of the voicemail message), a voicemail message deletion indication is produced at a user interface. If the voicemail message is saved at the voicemail system after retrieval of the voicemail message, a second voicemail notification message is received. The second voicemail notification message includes a second voicemail message time expiration value which is saved in the memory. If an expiration of the second expiration value occurs prior to another predetermined event, the voicemail message deletion indication is produced at the user interface.

In one example, a first message center address associated with a home message center and a second message center address associated with an emergency message center are stored in memory of the mobile device. A user input request for communicating a short message is received through a user interface of the mobile device. If the user input request is identified as being for an emergency message, the second message center address is read from the memory and provided in a message center address field of the short message. The short message having the second message center address in the message center address field is then transmitted by the mobile device to the wireless network. The network identifies the second message center address in the message center address field and, in response, causes the short message to be sent to the emergency message center which is local to the network.

Methods and apparatus for use in communicating short messages of the emergency type from mobile communication devices

Methods () and systems () in a wireless communication network for routing a short message to a local destination are provided. A wireless communication network () has a list of predefined short message destinations, receives a short message having a message destination from a wireless mobile communication device (), compares the message destination with the list of predefined short message destinations, and if the message destination matches a predefined short message destination of the list of predefined short message destinations, routes the short message to a local destination () corresponding to the matching predefined short message destination of the list of predefined short message destinations.

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Devizes, United Kingdom

Ian Harris