Sheila Scaggs

Title: Sheila Scaggs: Inventor of an Automatically Updated Telephone Response System

Introduction

Sheila Scaggs is an inventor associated with Fort Worth, Texas, and International Business Machines Corporation. Her patent work describes a telephone response mechanism that can automatically provide callers with updated information when a call goes unanswered.

Latest Patents

Scaggs is credited with 1 patent: “Method and System for Automatically Updating Telephone Response Mechanism.” The invention provides callers with a greeting and an opportunity to leave a message. Its response combines a greeting generated according to the time of day, a recorded message identifying the person being called, and information drawn from a database, such as a calendar or personnel database. The database-based portion can explain where the person is or when they are expected to return, and it updates automatically when the underlying information changes. A lockout feature can prevent the system from accessing selected database entries.

Career Highlights

Scaggs’s listed patent is associated with International Business Machines Corporation. It illustrates an approach to making telephone response systems more informative by connecting recorded messages with current database information.

Collaborations

Her listed coworkers include Robert P. Welch and Hadyn A. Inniss.

Conclusion

Sheila Scaggs’s patent presents a practical way to keep unanswered-call messages current by automatically incorporating permitted information from a user’s database.