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:
Jul. 27, 2004
Filed:
Nov. 22, 2000
Daniel Wilk, Toronto, CA;
SOMA Networks, Inc., San Francisco, CA (US);
Abstract
The present invention provides a novel system, method and apparatus for answering a telephone call. In one aspect of the invention, there is provided a system for call answering that includes a switch for connecting a telephony device to incoming calls received from callers connected to the switch via a telephone network. The switch is also connected to a processing unit and a storage device that contains a plurality of pre-recorded messages. When a callee at the telephony device receives an incoming call during a meeting (or at some other inconvenient time) and yet the callee wishes to respond to the caller, then the callee can provide (via a keypad on the telephony device) message selection criteria to the processing unit. The processing unit can then assemble an outgoing message based on the message selection critiera. The message is assembled from from the plurality of messages saved on the storage device. Having assembled the message, the processing unit can then play that outgoing message to the caller. In this manner, the callee is afforded a way to discretely respond to the caller without having to interrupt the meeting (or other activity that makes it inconvenient for the callee to answer the call.)