Personal caller ID

Abstract

The present invention provides an apparatus for efficient communication of messages such as voice messages in a telephone answering system. The apparatus includes an input to receive an incoming call, a recorder for recording outgoing messages, a memory to store incoming and outgoing messages, a comparator for comparing caller information to a client list, a player for playing a particular outgoing message to a calling party if the caller information matches a specific client in the client list, and a menu for identifying members of the client list and to identify locations in the memory for each of the members. The particular outgoing message includes a question previously posed by the specific client and a response to the question.

1 . An apparatus for processing a set of messages, the apparatus comprising: 
 (a) a first memory operable to store messages;    (b) a recorder operable to record an outgoing message by a user for a specific client, the outgoing message including a question previously posed by the specific client and a response to the question, the recorder recording the outgoing message in the first memory;    (c) an input operable to receive an incoming call from a calling party;    (d) a comparator operable to compare calling party information of the incoming call to a client list;    (e) a menu operable to identify members of the client list and to identify a location in the first memory for each of the members; and    (f) a player operable to play the outgoing message to the calling party if the calling party information matches to the specific client in the client list, the recorder being operable to record an incoming message from the calling party in the first memory after the outgoing message is played, the incoming message being associated with the outgoing message in the first memory, wherein the user can retrieve the outgoing message and the incoming message as a unit.    
   
   
       2 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , further including an output operable to redirect the incoming call to an answering machine if the calling party information does not match to any specific client in the client list.  
   
   
       3 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , further including a second memory, the second memory operable to store at least a portion of the incoming message.  
   
   
       4 . The apparatus of  claim 3 , wherein the second memory is operable to store at least a portion of the outgoing message, the at least a portion of the outgoing message being associated with the at least a portion of the incoming message.  
   
   
       5 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the first memory is a tape.  
   
   
       6 . The apparatus of  claim 5 , wherein the tape includes one or more segments for different calling parties, each of the segments including a first portion for a question, a second portion for a response to the question, and a third portion for a reply to the response.