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US 6,480,593 B1Granted
Communications system automatically diverting calls when user not present
AssigneeBritish Telecommunications public limited company
InventorsAlan C Munday, Graham J Norbury
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In a communications network (130), call divert, for calls directed to a local telephone (100), from the local telephone (100) to a remote telephone (150) is initiated by a computer system (160) after the user has had no interaction with the computer system for a predetermined period of time. Thus, a user need not remember to initialize call divert manually before leaving the vicinity of the local telephone (100).
Claims8
Call control apparatus comprising:
- inference means for inferring an absence of a user from the vicinity of user equipment, said inference means including a timer and being arranged to infer user absence by a lack of user direct interaction with the user equipment for longer than a pre-determined period of time;
- and
- control means being responsive to said inference means such that inference of user absence from the vicinity of said user equipment causes a call subsequently made to a first communications terminal after the absence of a user has been inferred to be re-directed to a second communications terminal.
A method of re-directing calls comprising:
- inferring the absence of a user from an area by detecting a lack of user direct interaction with user equipment;
- and
- re-directing calls subsequently made after the absence of said user direct interaction has been inferred to a first communications terminal situated in or near said area, in response to an inferred absence, from the first communications terminal to a second communications terminal.
A data transfer system comprising:
- inference means to infer an absence of a user from an area, said inference means including timer means and being arranged to infer user absence by a lack of user direct interaction with user equipment for longer than a pre-determined period of time;
- and
- control means being responsive to the inference means such that inference of user absence from a vicinity of said user equipment causes, in use, a transfer of data subsequently directed after the absence of a user has been inferred to a first communications terminal in or near said area to be re-directed to a second communications terminal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.