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:
Jan. 08, 2002
Filed:
Apr. 22, 1997
Ian R. Gordon, Ottawa, CA;
Nortel Networks Limited, St. Laurent, CA;
Abstract
A Central Office voicemail system permits a customer to monitor incoming calls and decide whether or not he wishes to take the call. When a call is made to a called party (customer) and the called party does not answer the phone the call is transferred to voicemail in the usual way. Additionally, a special ringing tone is applied automatically by the Central Office to the called party line. This has the effect of alerting the called party to the fact that the caller has been transferred to voicemail. The called party can then monitor the message being left simply by lifting his phone and, if he wants to talk to the caller, he simply carries out a hookswitch flash. Alternatively, with a specially adapted terminal, the called party does not even have to lift the phone to monitor the message because the special ringing tone causes his terminal to go automatically into off-hook hands-free mode.