Title of Invention

METHOD OF RECORDING RESPONSES FROM A CALLER MOBILE DEVICE WHEN A CALLED MOBILE DEVICE IS BUSY

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for asking questions in an answering machine. According to the present invention when a caller calls a callee who is away from the telephony device or busy with a previous call, the call made by the caller can be switched to an answering machine. The automatic answering system will detect the caller, either by caller identification number or by voice recognition. If the caller number is pre-defined, the device gtriggers questioning machine system, which automatically transmits pre-stored mechanical questions to the caller without interrupting the previous call. Further, the received response messages are prioritized with other general voice messages and also intimating the callee with the help of indicators. Thus, the callee has the option of knowing the exact information that he wished from the said caller, while he is away from his phone or is on another call. In another embodiment, the device waits for any negative reply for the sent query. Upon receiving such reply, the suer has the option of making suitable arrangement or prioritizing the members to be called.

Full Text

FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention, in general, relates to communication technology and particularly to Interactive Voice Response and voice recognition. More specifically, the present invention relates to an answering machine that transmits pre-stored queries to a caller, receives the replies, and informs the callee about the same. DESCRIPTION OF RELATED ART In the present scenario, when a callee is busy or unavailable to attend the call of the caller, the answering machine in the mobile telephony device of the callee takes over the call. The caller then could leave a voice-message in the . answering machine on the callee's telephony device, which the callee can listen to later. However, if the callee's telephone device is busy, but at the same time if he/she can't afford to miss the particular call or the information the caller is supposed to provide, the current telephony systems does not provide any options to facilitate that. Also, if more numbers of voice messages are stored in the callee's telephony device, then the prospect of listening to all the stored voice messages will be annoying for the callee as well. These drawbacks of the existing systems will become more obvious by explaining with reference to the following examples. Example scenario-1 John organizes a dinner by inviting 30 people. As a result, John's telephony device is always busy in the evening before the day in which the dinner is organized. John is trying to reach Peter's telephony device, to ask if peter will be able to come over for the dinner or not, but isn't able to get through with his call. Now, Peter calls John to inform that he won't be able to come for the dinner. But Peter is only able to reach John's answering machine where he leaves a voice message that he will not be able to make it for the dinner. John being too busy is not looking into the answering machine and as a result completely misses the information conveyed by Peter. Example scenario-2 John is the team leader for a 20-member project. The team members are only reachable through their mobile phones. All the team members need to submit their assigned work to John before a particular time so that John can integrate all the works done by the individual members of the team. John calls up each member one by one. Mary is the last one to be called who's the one having problem with her assignment. Mary is unable to reach John because his phone is always busy. By the time Mary's turn comes, it is already too late to take timely action to help her. These are the major issues needs to be overcome with the existing technology. The US patent titled "Method and System for sending a data message to a calling phone while communicating with a first phone" (US Patent Publication No 6850604) describes a method and communication system for sending a data message from a called phone to a calling phone while maintaining an active communication between the called phone and a first phone. The calling phone sends a call request to the called phone while the called phone is involved in an active communication with the first phone. The called phone sends a data message to the calling phone in response to the call request. The data message is sent while maintaining an active call with the first phone, so that the first phone is not placed "on hold". In another patent titled "User interface using speech generation to answer cellular phones" (US Patent Publication no.6842622), it describes a method, computer program product, and system for answering a wireless telephone. In one embodiment, the wireless telephone receives an incoming call and then determines whether the user has placed the phone in automatic call answering mode. If it is determined that automatic call answering has been selected by the user, then the phone answers the incoming call by providing the calling party with an indication that the user will take the call momentarily, such as by sending a voice message indicating that the user is busy but will take the call momentarily and instructing the calling party to not hang up. The phone also places itself into mute mode until the user has taken the incoming call to prevent the calling party from overhearing conversations that may be taking place around the user until the user has become free to take the phone call. In other embodiments, the wireless telephone allows the user to carry on conversations without speaking through selection of appropriate prerecorded or generated phrases. However, the prior art does not describe the scenario during busy or engaged call. Also, it does not mention anywhere in the literature any provision to transmit phone calls one by one with pre-stored message to the selected members. Hence, based upon the foregoing, there has been felt need for a method, which effectively fills the voids in the prior art. The present invention proposes a method in asking questions in an answering machine while recognizing interactive response and voice recognition. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is therefore the primary object of the invention to propose a mechanism . to transmit pre-stored queries to a caller without interrupting the ongoing call. It is another object of the invention to let the callee configure/save the queries to be sent to the caller in advance. It is yet another objective of the invention to have a method by which the call by the caller can be automatically switched to an answering machine, when the callee is engaged or busy with another call. It is yet another object of the invention to provide a method by which the answering machine could detect the call by using either the caller identification number or by voice recognition. It is further another objective of the invention to let the callee configure the phone numbers to which he wishes to send the mechanical questions. It is yet another object of the invention to store the received messages from the caller and is prioritized with other general voice messages by the telephony device. It is another object of the invention to let the caller edit/delete the replies he had given to the questioning machine. It is further objective of the invention to intimate the callee upon receipt of response messages from the caller with the help of indicators. Accordingly, the present invention provides a method to engage a caller when the callee is busy with a previous call, without letting the caller drop the call, by prompting him/her to answer a series of pre-configured mechanical questions sent to him/her by the questioning machine system, the method comprising, • Switching the incoming call to an answering machine, which in turn identifies the caller by his/her caller identification number or voice recognition. • Triggering the questioning machine system if the caller's number is . preconfigured in the telephony device. • Transmitting the pre-stored mechanical questions stored in the questioning machine system to the caller without interrupting the previous call. • Prioritizing the caller responses with respect to other voice responses received and saving the same in the telephony device. • Intimating the callee upon receipt of each answer with the help of indicators. Also, the present invention envisages a questioning machine system to engage a caller when the callee is engaged/busy with a previous call, the system comprising, • A telephony device with an answering machine • A questioning machine that embeds itself in the telephony device. • The required circuitry, memory, and software. These and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the ensuing detailed description of the invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the invention, which may be embodied in various forms. Therefore the details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting but merely as the basis for the claims and as a basis for teaching one skilled in the art how to make or use the invention. The proposed invention relates to a telephony device wherein a questioning machine transmits the pre-stored queries to the callee. By reference herein, telephony device stands for the callee's telephony device. The telephony device is upgraded with an additional feature known as "Questioning Machine". According to the preferred embodiment of the present invention, when a caller attempts to call a callee, who is already engaged in a conversation or away from the telephony device, it switches the call initiated by the caller to an answering machine. The answering machine will detect the caller by his/her caller identification or by voice recognition technique. If the caller's number is pre¬configured in the telephony device by the callee, the telephony device triggers a questioning machine system, which automatically transmits pre-stored mechanical questions to the caller without interrupting the ongoing call. The received • response messages from the caller then will be prioritized with the general voice messages and will be stored in the telephony device. The telephony device, upon receipt of the answer for the mechanical questions, will also intimate the callee with the help of indicators. Thus, the callee will be able to know the exact information that he wished to listen from the said caller, while he/she is still away from the telephony device or occupied with another call. According to another embodiment of the present invention, the telephony device automatically triggers the questioning machine and transmits the mechanical questions to the pre-configured callers by the callee in the telephony device. Further, the telephony device waits for any negative reply for the sent queries. On receipt of a negative reply from any of the callers, it provides an option to the callee for making suitable arrangements for prioritizing the callers to • be called. According to yet another embodiment of the present invention, the mechanical questions asked by the questioning machine are objective type questions rather than long conversations. Examples of such objective type questions include but not limited to • Whether the caller will be coming for the dinner or not? • Whether an appointment with the caller at a particular time holds good or not? etc. These questions will have objective type answers and hence referred to as mechanical questions. Accordingly, it preempts a necessity for the caller and the callee to involve in a long conversation. Further, these mechanical questions can be stored in a questioning machine wherein the callee can configure it in such a way that it asks the questions to the callers from whom the callee wants an answer. According to a further embodiment of the present invention, the user interface for configuring the questioning machine in the telephony device can be integrated with the telephony device itself or the questioning machine can be configured using the computer. As per another embodiment of the present invention, the questioning machine will allow the caller to redo or undo the answer even after answering them already. According to yet another embodiment of the present invention, the telephony device can be analog or digital device that supports a calling application, which include but not limiting to a fixed line telephone, a mobile phone, computer etc. The present invention can be explained in detail with reference to the already discussed examples in the prior art. Although the present invention has been fully described in connection with the preferred embodiments, it is to be noted that various changes and modifications are possible and are apparent to those skilled in the art. Such changes and modifications are to be understood as included within the scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims unless they depart there from. WE CLAIM 1. A method for to engage a caller when the callee is busy with a previous call, without letting the caller drop the call, by prompting him/her to answer a series of pre-configured mechanical questions sent to him/her by the questioning machine system, the method comprising, • Switching the incoming call to an answering machine, which in turn identifies the caller by his/her caller identification number or voice recognition. • Triggering the questioning machine system if the caller's number is preconfigured in the telephony device. • Transmitting the pre-stored mechanical questions stored in the questioning machine system to the caller without interrupting the previous call. • Prioritizing the caller responses with respect to other voice responses received and saving the same in the telephony device. • Intimating the callee upon receipt of each answer with the help of indicators. 2. A questioning machine system to engage a caller when the callee is engaged/busy with a previous call, the system comprising, • A telephony device with an answering machine • A questioning machine that embeds itself in the telephony device. • The required circuitry, memory, and software. 3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the questioning machine system can be configured to send the pre-stored mechanical questions to a set of pre-configured phone numbers. 4. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein on receipt of any negative reply, the caller can be intimated about the same through indicators. 5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the mechanical questions pre- stored in the questioning machine system may be of objective types. 6. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the callee may configure the questioning machine in such a way that it selectively sends the mechanical questions to a pre-configured set of callers. 7. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the caller can redo/delete the answers he/she had replied to the questioning machine. 8. The system as claimed in claim 2, wherein the user interface for configuring the questioning machine in the telephony device can be integrated with the telephony device itself or it can be done using a PC. 9. The system as claimed in claim 2, wherein the telephony device can be any analog or digital device that supports a calling application, which include but not limited to landline phone, mobile phone or a PC. 10. A method to engage a caller when the caliee is busy with a previous call, without letting the caller drop the call, by prompting him/her to answer a series of pre-configured mechanical questions sent to him/her by the questioning machine system, substantially as herein described. 11. A questioning machine system to engage a caller when the callee is engaged/busy with a previous call, substantially as herein described.

Documents:

2495-CHE-2006 AMENDED PAGES OF SPECIFICATION 04-06-2013.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 AMENDED CLAIMS 04-06-2013.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 CORRESPONDENCE OTHERS 04-06-2013.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 EXAMINATION REPORT REPLY RECEIVED 30-04-2013.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 FORM-1 04-06-2013.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 FORM-1 30-04-2013.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 FORM-13 30-04-2013.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 FORM-5 04-06-2013.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 OTHER PATENT DOCUMENT 30-04-2013.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 POWER OF ATTORNEY 30-04-2013.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 AMENDED PAGES OF SPECIFICATION 30-04-2013.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 AMENDED CLAIMS 06-08-2013.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 AMENDED CLAIMS 30-04-2013.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 CORRESPONDENCE OTHERS 06-08-2013.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 POWER OF ATTORNEY 04-06-2013.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 ABSTRACT.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 CLAIMS.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 CORRESPONDENCE OTHERS.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 DESCRIPTION (COMPLETE).pdf

2495-CHE-2006 FORM 18.pdf

2495-CHE-2006 FORM 5.pdf

2495-che-2006-correspondnece-others.pdf

2495-che-2006-description(provisional).pdf

2495-che-2006-form 1.pdf

2495-che-2006-form 26.pdf