Method and apparatus for automatically handling faxes

A method of handling faxes, comprising:

• developing and storing caller identification information including a list of trusted caller identification information and a list of frequent caller identification information;
• receiving caller identification information associated with an incoming call from a network;
• and
• determining to accept or to reject the incoming call based on comparison of said received caller identification information with the stored list of caller identification information;
• adding the received caller identification information of the incoming call to the stored list of frequent caller identification information If the, incoming caller identification information received from the network is not present in the stored list of trusted caller identification information;
• and
• adding the caller identification information of the incoming call to the list of blocked caller identification information if the incoming caller identification information received from the network is not present in the stored list of trusted caller identification information and a usage value associated with that incoming caller Identification exceeds a predetermined threshold value.

A computer system for connecting to a network to receive calls, comprising:

• a processor;
• a memory for storing caller identification information including a list of trusted caller identification information and a list of frequent caller identification information and
• a fax device operable to receive caller identification information from the network corresponding to an incoming call and coupled to the memory and the processor to enable a determination to accept or to reject the incoming call based on a comparison with caller identification information stored in the memory, said fax device further operable to add incoming caller identification information to the list of frequent caller identification information if not present in the list of trusted caller identification information;
• and said fax device is also operable to add incoming caller identification information to the list of blocked caller identification information if not present in the list of trusted caller identification information and a usage value associated with that incoming caller identification information exceeds a predetermined threshold value.

A fax device, comprising:

• a memory for storing caller identification information including a list of blocked caller identification information, and further lists including a list of trusted caller identification information, a list of frequent caller identification information, and a list of urgent caller identification information;
• and
• a controller coupled to the memory, the controller operable to respond to caller identification information associated with an incoming fax transmission received from a network and based on a comparison with caller identification information stored in said memory, to process said incoming fax transmission if the incoming caller information from the network does not match stored blocked caller information, said processing including determining to accept or to reject the incoming fax transmission, said controller further operable to initiate automatically a transmission to a predetermined destination in response to an accepted incoming fax transmission including caller identification information corresponding to stored urgent caller information;
• and
• wherein the controller is operable to add incoming caller identification information to the list of blocked caller identification information if not present in the list of trusted caller identification information and a usage value associated with that incoming caller identification information is exceeded.

A fax device, comprising:

• means for storing caller identification information including a list of trusted caller identification information and a list of frequent caller identification information;
• means for receiving caller identification information from a telecommunications network associated with an incoming call;
• and
• means for determining to accept or to reject the incoming call based comparison of the received caller identification information with the stored caller identification information;
• means for adding incoming caller information automatically to a list of frequent caller identification information if not present in the list of trusted caller identification information, and
• means for automatically adding incoming caller identification Information to a list of blocked caller identification if that incoming caller information is not present in the list of trusted caller identification information and if a usage value associated with that incoming caller identification information derived from said list of frequent caller identification information exceeds a predetermined threshold value.