Telephone answering apparatus and method for determining the time of message reception
Assignee3Com Corporation
InventorMilos Brablec
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A telephone answering apparatus for determining the time of message reception includes a host computer having a host clock operatively connected to an application running on the host computer. A telephone answering device includes a controller operatively connected to a device clock, and a memory device operatively connected to the controller to store a message. The application is operatively connected to the controller wherein the application resets the device clock and stores a host clock value on the host computer and adds an incremented device clock value assigned to the stored message to the host clock value to determine the actual time of message reception.
Claims17
A telephone answering apparatus for determining the time of message reception comprising:
- a host computer including a host clock operatively connected to an application running on the host computer, a telephone answering device including a controller operatively connected to a device clock, and a memory device operatively connected to the controller to store a message, the application operatively connected to the controller wherein the host computer is a personal computer and wherein the application resets the device clock to a start-time device clock value that is different than a host clock value, stores the host clock value on the host computer, and adds an incremented device clock value assigned to the stored message to the host clock value to determine the actual time of message reception.
A method for determining the time of reception of message reception comprising:
- providing a host computer including a host clock operatively connected to an application running on the host computer, a telephone answering device including a controller operatively connected to a device clock, and a memory device operatively connected to the controller, the application operatively connected to the controller wherein the host computer is a personal computer;
- resetting the device clock to a start-time device clock value that is different than a host clock value;
- storing the host clock value in the host computer;
- incrementing the device clock;
- receiving a message;
- storing the message with an incremented device clock value;
- retrieving the message with the incremented device clock value;
- adding the incremented device clock value to the host clock value;
- and
- ascertaining the actual time of message reception.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.