Telephone answering system with call transfer

Claim 1

A telephone answering system for receiving calls forwarded from the answering system's client phones by the switched network over a group of lines and data including a unique number identifying the called client and data identifying a line in the group of lines on which a forwarded call resides comprising: storage means for storing at least first and second files, said first file including a plurality of client records each corresponding to one of the unique client identifying numbers and including a name identifying the client and call processing information, said second file including a plurality of line records, one for each line in the said group of lines, each said line record including the status of the line, and an indicia for accessing the client record in the first file corresponding to the said unique number identifying data identifying the client provided by the switched network; processing means connected to the said storage means and responsive to the said data supplied by the switched network identifying the unique number and the line on which the call resides for updating the said second file in the said storage means to reflect the current status of each line in accordance with the received data; and at least one operator station connected to said lines and said storage means and including operator controlled means for fetching and displaying the contents of the said second file, for selectively fetching and displaying a client record in the said first file in accordance with the displayed line status and answering the call as instructed in the displayed client record.

Claim 9

A method of operating a telephone answering service in which calls to an answering service client telephone from callers via a public telephone network are forwarded to the answering service when the client is unable to answer a call comprising the steps: forwarding calls placed to an unattended client telephone to a preassigned client telephone number which is a unique one of a plurality of preassigned telephone numbers assigned to a line of a first telephone service provided by the said public telephone network; immediately forwarding calls received on said line of said first service to a second service provided by the said public telephone network which uniformly distributes all received calls over a group of lines connected to the telephone answering service and provides signals to the telephone answering service identifying the said preassigned number and the one line of said group of lines over which the cell is routed; receiving said signals at said telephone answering service, accessing stored call processing information associated with said preassigned client number and displaying said call processing information at an operator station; and, flashing the said one line over which the call is routed and thereafter transmitting dial digits identifying another telephone connected to the said public telephone network when the call processing information indicated that the caller is to be transferred and thereafter placing the said one line over which the call is routed on hook whereby the one line is available for receiving additional calls.

Claim 10

A method of operating a telephone answering service in which calls to an answering service client telephone from callers via a public telephone network are forwarded to the answering service when the client is unable to answer a call comprising the steps: forwarding calls placed to an unattended client telephone to a preassigned client telephone number which is a unique one of a plurality of preassigned telephone numbers assigned to a line of a first telephone service provided by the said public telephone network; immediately forwarding calls received on said line of said first service to a second service provided by the said public telephone network which uniformly distributes all received calls over a group of lines connected to the telephone answering service and provides signals to the telephone answering service identifying the said preassigned number and the one line of said group of lines over which the cell is routed; receiving said signals at said telephone answering service, accessing stored call processing information associated with said preassigned client number and displaying said call processing information at an operator station; and, flashing the said one line over which the call is routed and thereafter transmitting dial digits identifying another telephone connected to the said public telephone network when the call processing information indicated that the caller is to be transferred and thereafter placing the said one line over which the call is routed on hook whereby the one line is available for receiving additional calls.