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:
Aug. 19, 2003
Filed:
Sep. 25, 2001
James Carlton Bedingfield, Lilburn, GA (US);
Navneet Patel, Marietta, GA (US);
Emily A. Candell, Waltham, MA (US);
Ann V. McLaughlin, Sudbury, MA (US);
Robert E. Braudes, Danvers, MA (US);
Janice C. Chung, Lexington, MA (US);
BellSouth Intellectual Property Corporation, Wilmington, DE (US);
Abstract
Methods and systems to send a message from a sending party to a recipient without the message revealing an identity of the sending party. The identity may be the name of the sending party, a calling line number associated with a calling line of the sending party, or an e-mail address of the sending party. The message may be a reply to a previous message or a forwarding message of an earlier message. In response to a message being received, a check is made to determine whether an anonymity feature is enabled for all messages received from the sending party, or whether the anonymity feature is enabled for the message. In response to finding the anonymity feature enabled for all messages or for the message, an anonymity indicator is included with the message. The presence of the anonymity indicator has the effect of withholding the identity of the sending party when the message is made available to or retrieved by the recipient. Despite the withholding of the identity of the sending party, the recipient may reply to the message. An embodiment provides that a message including an anonymity indicator may be rejected instead of routed to the recipient.