Patent · US Expired

Method and apparatus for delivering multi-media messages over different transmission media

US5630060A · kind A · utility

296Cited by
14References
32Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMay 1, 1995
Grant dateMay 13, 1997
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 1, 2015

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04M3/5307
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

Method and apparatus for delivering multi-media messages which may include text components, image components, sound components or binary components to multiple recipients over different transmission media. A list of recipients of the multi-media message is inspected to determine all of the different transmission media that will be needed to transmit to all the recipients. The list of recipients may be obtained from an address portion of the multi-media message, and may, for example, consist of the direct recipients of a message, the carbon copy ("cc:") recipients of the message, and the blind carbon copy ("bcc:") recipients of the message. It is possible for each recipient to receive various components of the multi-media message by different media. Then, for each component of the message that is incompatible with all needed transmission media, the component is converted into equivalent components whose types are compatible with all the different transmission media. Thus, for example, if a multi-media message includes a text component, then an equivalent image component is created for the facsimile medium by conversion of the text file to an image file, and equivalent audio componen…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.