System and method of remote fax interconnect technology
AssigneeetherFAX, LLC
InventorsRobert N. Cichielo, Paul J. Banco
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Abstract
The present invention provides systems and methods for the virtualization, aggregation, and distributed processing of facsimile communications. The Remote FAX Interconnect known as etherFAX® is a system and method that allows for the reception and delivery of information based on cloud computing infrastructure to or from one or more facsimile systems using Internet/web based communication protocols such as HTTP(S) as the transport between a facsimile capable application or hardware and the remotely accessible etherFAX® services.
Claims20
A virtualized facsimile adapter configured to interoperate with a facsimile server, the facsimile server being of the type that provides communications logic that receives electronic items over a digital network from a requester, provides a queue of received items awaiting transmission to at least one peer facsimile device, and uses hardware and/or software to convert queued electronic items into facsimile format transmissions to at least one peer facsimile device, the virtualized facsimile adapter comprising:
- a virtual facsimile driver configured to reside on the facsimile server, the virtual facsimile driver accessing stored configuration information identifying a remote network-accessible facsimile communicating resource, the virtual facsimile driver being further configured to access the identified remote network-accessible facsimile communicating resource over at least one of a networked data port and a networked data channel;
- a main processing loop configured to check the facsimile server queue and determine in response to the checking when the queue contains any electronic items that need to be sent by facsimile to at least one peer facsimile device;
- a binder that, upon the main processing loop determining the queue contains an electronic item that needs to be sent by facsimile to at least one peer facsimile device, binds to the at least one of the networked data port and the networked data channel and delivers digital information representing the electronic item over the at least one of the networked data port and the networked data channel to the remote network-accessible transmitting resource for facsimile transmission by the remote network-accessible transmitting resource to the at least one peer facsimile device;
- and
- a status monitor that communicates with the remote network-accessible transmitting resource, the status monitor monitoring the status of the facsimile transmittal by the remote network-accessible transmitting resource to the at least one peer facsimile device and communicating status information to the requester over the network.
A virtualized facsimile adapter configured to interoperate with computer system that provides a queue of received items awaiting transmission to at least one peer facsimile device, the virtualized facsimile adapter comprising:
- a virtual facsimile driver configured to access stored configuration information identifying a remote network-accessible facsimile communicating resource, the virtual facsimile driver being further configured to access the identified remote network-accessible facsimile communicating resource over at least one of a networked data port and a networked data channel;
- a main processing loop configured to determine whether the queue contains any electronic items that need to be sent by facsimile to at least one peer facsimile device;
- a binder that, upon the main processing loop determining the queue contains an electronic item that needs to be sent by facsimile to at least one peer facsimile device, binds to the at least one of the networked data port and the networked data channel and delivers digital information representing the electronic item over the at least one of the networked data port and the networked data channel to the remote network-accessible transmitting resource for facsimile transmission by the remote network-accessible transmitting resource to the at least one peer facsimile device;
- and
- a status monitor that communicates with the remote network-accessible transmitting resource, the status monitor monitoring the status of the facsimile transmittal by the remote network-accessible transmitting resource to the at least one peer facsimile device and communicating status information to the requester over the network.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.