Voice mail system, voice synthesizing device and method therefor

A voice mail system comprising one or more terminal devices and one or more voice mail server devices connected through a network as communication nodes, in which said voice mail server device comprises:

• voice feature control means for controlling voice feature data for voice features of a plurality of voices in correlation with one or more identifiers which are unique within the network;
• mail reception means for receiving a mail containing at least a communication message and said identifier;
• voice synthesizer means for synthesizing a voice which represents the content of the communication message contained in the received mail in a voice feature indicated by said voice feature data which is controlled in correlation with said identifier contained in the received mail;
• voice output means for outputting said synthesized voice to one or more of said plurality of terminal devices in response to a request from one or more of said plurality of terminal devices;
• wherein each of said communication nodes comprises clock means for measuring an operating time;
• each of said voice feature data including time limit data indicating a limit of using the voice feature data;
• and
• said voice synthesizer means synthesizing the voice using said voice feature data only when said operating time is within the use limit indicated by said time limit data contained in said voice feature data.

A voice synthesizer means for synthesizing a voice of a communication message of a mail containing at least a communication message and an identifier comprising:

• voice feature data control means for controlling voice feature data for voice features of a plurality of voices in correlation with one or more identifiers which are unique within the network which transmits said mails;
• voice synthesizer means for synthesizing a voice representing the content of a communication message contained in the received mail in a voice feature indicated by said voice feature data which is controlled in connection with said identifier;
• and
• time limit data means for limiting the use of voice feature data for at least one of the synthesized voices to an operating time within a time use limit period.

A voice mail communication method comprising:

• controlling voice feature data indicating each voice feature of a plurality of voices in correlation with one or more identifiers which are unique within a network;
• receiving a mail containing at least a communication message and one or more identifiers;
• synthesizing a voice representing the content of a communication message contained in the received mail in a voice feature indicated by said voice feature data which is controlled in correction to said identifier contained in said received mail;
• and
• providing permission use data in the voice feature data which indicates identifiers of destinations in the network which are permitted to use the voice feature data.

A voice synthesizing method for synthesizing a voice of a communication message of a mail which contains at least a communication message and an identifier comprising:

• generating voice feature data by users speaking into a microphone and distributing the voice feature data to destinations within a network;
• controlling voice feature data indicating each voice feature of a plurality of voices in correlation with one or more identifiers which are unique within the network which transmit each of said mails providing permission use data in the voice feature data for a voice which indicates the identifiers of destinations in the network permitted to use the voice feature data;
• and
• synthesizing a voice representing the content of a communication message contained in the received mail in a voice feature indicated by said voice feature data which is controlled in correlation to said identifier.

A computer readable recording medium which records therein a program for causing the computer to execute the steps of:

• generating voice feature data by users speaking into a microphone;
• distributing the generated voice feature data to destinations within a network;
• controlling each voice feature data indicating each voice feature of a plurality of voices in correlation with one or more identifiers which are unique within the network;
• providing permission data in the voice feature data which limits use of the voice feature data to only some of the destinations in the network;
• receiving a mail containing at least a communication message and one or more identifiers;
• and
• synthesizing a voice representing the content of a communication message contained in the received mail in a voice feature indicated by said voice feature data which is correlated to said identifier and the voice permission data contained in said received mail.