Fax Mail Automatic Distribution System

1. Field of Invention

This invention relates to systems for distribution of information, and more particularly to the automatic receipt and distribution of facsimile mail, herein known as fax mail.

2. Description of Related Art

The usage of fax mail has become quite popular and provides a convenience for the sender and receiver to be able to share an image as it exists with the sender. Some of these images are facsimiles of straight forward text and could be transmitted easily by other means like E-mail, but getting text into a digital form is not always convenient. Other images contain graphics, or non-text; and although, there are ways to transmit these graphics through an E-mail system, it is also not convenient. It would require senders and receivers to perform the likes of encoding and decoding or be connected to the same E-mail system to be able to attach files to messages. Fax-mail spans all these and provides the convenience of being able to recreate within moments a facsimile of an image at a receiving fax machine which exists at the sending fax machine located miles apart.

As the facsimile technology has become more popular, more and more people are receivers and senders of fax data. To save on cost in some establishments, a few fax machines have been assigned to many people and the problem of distributing the fax mail to all the people became burdensome and slow. The tracking of the fax mail became difficult and security was compromised with more people having access to the manual system. Different schemes have been created to help in this distribution. One scheme, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,115,326 (Burgess, et al.), includes the use of a bar code on the first page of the fax mail containing such information as the "To", "From" and "Subject". This allows the computing system to which the fax mail is connected to read the bar code and determining key routing information. The difficulty with this scheme is that everyone sending a fax to this system needs a bar code encoder for their fax to be handled automatically by the system. A second scheme, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,461,488 (Witek), an automatic fax system is described in which an incoming fax is automatically converted to a text file using some form of character recognition and then sent to the receiving individual by means of an electronic mail system. This automatic system is greatly dependent on the quality of the character recognition as well as the quality of the incoming data. Other schemes include creating an elaborate indexing, storage and retrieval system, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,235,433 (Clarkson, et al.), to be able to handle a large volume of fax mail. This scheme incorporates telephony data that comes with the transmission of the fax. The difficulty here is that it relies on a correlation between the sender and the sending phone numbers. In today's world of portable PC's this can be a difficulty. Still another scheme links E-mail and fax mail systems, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,339,156 (Ishii), have been created that use the E-mail system for notification and control and the fax mail system for storage and delivery including delivery of data from the E-mail system.

Through all of this there is a continuing need for a simple system that handles most fax mail automatically, delivering it to the receivers mail box while permitting fax mail not adhering to all the requirements to have a convenient method for routing to the receiver of the fax mail. Also there needs to be included in such a system the methodology and capability to send, track and maintain security on the fax mail.

The need to automate the distribution of fax mail arises from the number of pieces of fax mail and the number of recipients using a single fax machine. Not only is the manual distribution tedious and cumbersome but provides little tracking and security capability. An automatic system lends itself to providing both a tracking system as well security.

In this invention a main computing system or server is connected to a multiple of personal computers, or PC's, through a network. Everyone who shares the system has an unique electronic mail box. The address of the mail box is mapped to the unique ID number of the owner. Everyone can receive messages and data at a local PC from their respective mail box. Also connected to the server is a data and voice modem herein called a modem and having the capability to transmit facsimile, or fax, data as well as voice information. The sender of a fax dials the phone number of the telephone line connected to the modem using the sending fax phone. Upon detection that the modem is being called, a voice response is sent to the sender of the fax through the modem asking for a destination ID of the person who is to receive the fax. The sender enters the destination ID on the fax phone key pad. After entering all destination ID's the sender is asked by the server to start the fax transmission. Having received the fax data, the server routes the fax to the personal mail box corresponding to the destination ID's provided by the sender. In the process the fax is placed in the receiving message audit pool in the server for audit purposes.

Should the sender not know the destination ID of the receiving person, the fax is placed into a message pool. The fax operator reviews the fax having no destination ID and determines the destination from a list of possible receiving persons. If the operator can't determine the destination, he (she) posts a message in a bulletin mail box for the intended receiver of the fax. The receiver reviews the bulletin mail box and can ask for full details from the message pool. The server then requests that the receiver send a destination ID to the fax sender. If the operator can determine who should receive the fax, the operator sends the fax to the personal mail box of the receiver through the server and the network. The receiver reads the fax from his (her) personal mail box by accessing it with a local PC.

A fax being sent from the system is prepared for sending at a local PC using a network copy of the software fax resident in the server. When the fax data is ready for sending to a remote fax machine, the sender at the local PC sends the fax through the router to the modem attached to the server. The router saves a copy of the fax in the sending message audit pool for audit purposes and places a privilege level on the information defining who may look at the data.

This invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the system configuration according to the invention; and

FIG. 2 is the flow diagram for receiving fax data according to the invention; and

FIG. 3 is the flow diagram for sending fax data according to the invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, a main computing system or server 1 is connected to a data and voice modem 2 and through a telephone line 3 to a remote fax machine 4. The remote fax machine 4 is connected with an integrated, or separate, telephone 5 to the telephone line 3 and having touch tone capability. The server is further connected to a network 6 and through this network to a number of local personal computers, or PC's 7, and personal mail boxes 15.

Continuing to refer to FIG. 1, the server 1 is configured amongst other computing functions for handling the receiving and sending of fax data, and having a router function 8 that interfaces the elements of the system and controls the flow of information between those elements. When the data-voice modem 2 is called by a sending fax machine 4, the call is detected by the router 8. The router 8 request through a control unit 9 for a voice response be sent to the sender at the remote fax 4. The control unit 9 signals the voice response module 10 to send a voice message to the sender at the remote fax 4 requesting that a destination ID for a receiving person be keyed into the key pad of the phone 5. The control unit 9 is further connected to the system supervisor 11 to insure adequate system resources are available to receive the incoming fax message. After the entry of each destination ID by the sender at the remote fax phone 5, the router 8 requests the voice response 10 through the control unit 9 to ask if there are any more destination ID's, and if there are none to enter the "#"sign into the key pad of the fax phone 5. Upon receiving the signal representing the "#"through the modem 2, the router 8 requests the voice response 10 to request the fax sender to start the transmission of the fax data from the remote fax machine 4. The router 8 connects the incoming fax data from the modem 2 to the software fax 12. The software fax 12 interprets the incoming fax data from the modem 2 and formats the data to be transmitted to the mail box 15 of the person having the destination ID sent by the sender at the remote fax machine 4. The router 8 sends the formatted data from the software fax 12 through the network 6 to the personal mail box 15, and copies the detail of the fax into a receiving message audit pool 18 for auditing purposes. If there were no destination ID's provided by the sender at the remote fax machine 4, the fax data formatted by the software fax 12 is sent to a message pool 14 by the router 8 for review to determine the destination ID.

Referring to FIG. 2 a flow diagram is shown for the process of receiving fax mail from a remote fax machine 4 shown in FIG. 1. A fax is prepared to send to the system 30. The sender dials the system 31 to which the fax is to be sent. Upon receiving the phone call from the sender at the remote fax, the system sends a voice message asking for the destination ID number of the receiver of the fax 32. If the ID number is known 33, the sender enters the ID number using the fax phone key pad 34. After the entry of each ID number, the system asks by voice means for an additional ID number 35. If there are additional ID numbers 36, the sender enters each one after being prompted by voice by the system each time with a request for additional; ID numbers 35. If there are no additional ID numbers 37 or there was none with which to begin 38, the fax sender enters the "#"symbol 39 on the fax machines phone key pad as prompted by voice by the system. After receiving the "#"signal, the system asks the sender by means of a voice response to start transmission of the fax 40. If destination ID's 34 were received by the system, the fax is routed to the mail box of each ID that was provided 42. The copy of the fax is stored in the receiving message audit pool 43 for tracking and audit purposes. A privilege level is set to establish who may review the fax for security purposes 44. If there were no receiver destination ID's 46, the fax is placed into a message pool 47. The operator reviews the fax and determines an destination ID 48. If the operator can determine who should receive the fax 52, the fax is sent to the personal mail box 54 of the person who should receive the fax. If the receiving person cannot be determined 53, the operator then sends a message to the bulletin mail box 49. A receiving person reviews the bulletin mail box 50 for any fax not having a destination ID using a local PC 7. Any fax intended for the person but not routed to the personal mail box can be requested from the message pool. The operator requests the receiver to send the destination ID to the sender of the fax 51. The fax is stored in a receiving message audit pool 43 and a privilege level is set for auditing purposes 44.

Referring to FIG. 3, a process for sending fax data to a remote fax machine is shown. A fax is readied at a local PC 7 in FIG. 1 for sending 60 and a request is made of the system to send the fax 61. Destination ID's in the form of telephone numbers for remote fax machines and ID number of the sender along with the location of the fax file 62 are provided to the system for sending the fax. The fax is sent through the data-voice modem to each phone number provided 63. The system confirms that the fax was successfully sent 64. If the fax was not successfully sent 65, the fax is returned to the local PC sender for modifications and a retry 60. If the fax was successfully sent 66 to the remote fax machine, the fax is routed to the mail box of each person whose ID was provided as a destination ID 67. Similar to the process for receiving fax data, a copy of the fax data is stored into the sending message audit pool for auditing 68 and a privilege level is set for auditing purposes 69.

While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.