The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 31, 1988
Filed:
Aug. 29, 1986
Howard A Kerr, West Chicago, IL (US);
American Telephone and Telegraph Company, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ (US);
Abstract
Apparatus and method are disclosed for overriding a fraud control feature utilized by a switching system to disable communications over a unidirectional path serving a call until answer supervision is returned for the call. The switching system includes a fraud control unit which inserts idle code into the unidirectional transmit path serving the call and disables communications on the path from a calling to a called line. However, normal call progress signals are allowed to pass on the receive path from the called to the calling line. The fraud control unit includes an idle code generator for generating the idle code and a selector for inserting either the idle code from the generator or the communications on the transmit path from the caller. The selector is controlled by a control unit under the control of the central processor of the switching system. When an override signal is received on an operator trunk, the central processor causes the fraud control unit to remove the disabling of communications on the transmit path so that normal communication may proceed from the calling to the called line. An operator position under the control of an operator also initiates billing and trouble records for the call when an absence of answer supervision is indicated and information is received that the call has been actually answered.