Teleconference recording and playback system and associated method

A method for recording and marking a teleconference comprising the steps of:

• providing a plurality of telephones each having means for transmitting an audible voice signal and a manually-activated marking signal;
• establishing a communications link between the telephones;
• recording the audible voice signals and marking signals transmitted from the telephones in a digital data stream;
• determining a time offset from a known location in the data stream to each marking signal;
• and
• storing the data stream and time offsets.

A teleconference recording and marking system for use by a plurality of teleconference participants for allowing a participant to set an identifying time tag when a teleconference is being recorded and to later play back a portion of this recorded teleconference beginning at the time tag comprising:

• a plurality of touch tone telephones each having means for transmitting an audible voice signal and a plurality of manually-activated audible dual tone multi-frequency marking signals;
• means for establishing a communications link between the telephones;
• means for recording the audible voice signals and marking signals transmitted from the telephones in a digital data stream;
• means for replacing each marking signal within the data stream with a shorter time tag;
• means for determining a time offset measured from the beginning of the data stream to each time tag;
• means for storing the data stream in an audio file and the time offsets in a web page source document;
• and
• means for playing the data stream contained in the audio file starting at any one of the time offsets contained in the web page source document, wherein the means for playing further comprises a web browser client application having a user interface for displaying the web page source document, a web server application for supplying the web page source document to the web browser client application, an audio client application for playing the audio file starting at any one of the time offsets when activated by one of the participants through the web page source document, and an audio server application for supplying the audio file to the audio client application.