(12) United States Patent ao) Patent No.: us 6,359,892 Bi
Szlam (45) Date of Patent: Mar. 19,2002
(54) REMOTE ACCESS, EMULATION, AND CONTROL OF OFFICE EQUIPMENT, DEVICES AND SERVICES
(75) Inventor: Aleksander Szlam, Norcross, GA (US)
(73) Assignee: Inventions, Inc., Norcross, GA (US)
( * ) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term ol this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U.S.C. 154(b) by 0 days.
(21) Appl. No.: 08/977,412
(22) Filed: Nov. 24, 1997
Related U.S. Application Data
(60) Provisional application No. 60/064,251, filed on Nov. 4, 1997.
(51) Int. CI.7 H04M 3/42; H04M 7/00
(52) U.S. CI 370/401; 370/465; 709/217;
709/227
(58) Field of Search 370/352, 353,
370/354, 355, 356, 400, 401, 465, 466; 709/200, 203, 217, 218, 219, 227, 249, 250; 379/265, 93.03, 211, 93.02, 212, 214, 419, 93.07, 100.12, 207
(56) References Cited
U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS
5,598,536 A * 1/1997 Slaughter, III et al. . 385/200.16
5,764,639 A * 6/1998 Staples et al 370/401
5,790,548 A * 8/1998 Sistanizadeh et al 370/401
5,793,365 A * 8/1998 Tang et al 345/329
5,812,819 A * 9/1998 Rodwin et al 395/500
5,889,845 A * 3/1999 Staples et al 379/211
6,122,255 A * 9/2000 Bartholomew et al 370/237
FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS
EP 0 880 255 A2 11/1998
A business has a main office (13) which has a controller (225), a plurality ol telephones, a plurality ol computers, a PBX and/or an ACD (216), and a plurality ol corporate resources (220) such as servers, hosts, applications, databases, routers, gateways, switches, a voicemail system, an e-mail system, and lacsimile servers. A user at the main office (13) has access to the various corporate resources and also has a portable communications device (10), such as a laptop computer, with which to place a call to the controller via a communications link (11) such as the Internet, to send user commands to and receive the resultant status, information, or operation, from, the controller, to access any ol the corporate resources and data, and to make calls to and receive communications Irom outside parties (12). In addition, the user may create a personal profile which causes the controller to forward selected communications to him, via the Internet, wherever the user may be. The laptop computer allows the user to operate in the same manner as if the user was actually in his office, including placing, receiving, forwarding, and conferencing telephone calls. As a result, regardless of where the user is located, and regardless of what equipment is actually available at the current location of the user, the user can conduct business using the same devices and features that are available at the user's office.
7 Claims, 10 Drawing Sheets
