Active Voice licenses patent approved by F.C.C. waiver

Business Wire, Oct 24, 1995

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 24, 1995--Active Voice Corp. (Nasdaq: ACVC), a world leader in PC-based voice processing systems and computer-telephone integration (CTI), today announced that the recent release of a waiver by the Federal Communications Commission (F.C.C.) will allow its licensees to offer a device that detects the presence of a stutter dial tone.

This waiver will allow Active Voice to begin marketing their patent, number 5,327,493 received July 5, 1994, which gives them the rights for visual message waiting devices that detect and identify call progress tones on telephone lines.

The stutter dial tone is used to indicate waiting messages primarily in the residential telephone market by the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) and other voice messaging services. A drawback to using the stutter dial tone is that users must pick up their handsets to find out if they have a message.

The Active Voice patent provides an inexpensive solution for both residential and corporate phones for a visual indication by means of a message waiting light. This technology, which can be built directly into the telephone or in a standalone device attached to it, checks for the stutter dial tone after the telephone has been used or after the telephone rings with no answer. If the tone exists, a blinking light will appear. If stutter dial tone is no longer present, the light will turn off.

"We are pleased to be able to provide this technology to the millions of Central Office-based voice mail users who now often miss messages when they don't remember to pick up the phone," said Robert L. Richmond, CEO and chairman.

Active Voice has recently granted a license under its stutter dial tone patent to Alameda Engineering Incorporated (AEI). "We have been developing a product based on stutter dial tone detection for several years," said Erlend Olson, president and director of engineering for AEI. "With the recent approval of our F.C.C. waiver request and the licensing agreement with Active Voice, we now have a green light to begin marketing our MessageAlert product, which we will sell through our partner, Practical Telephony Corporation."

Active Voice is seeking additional partners and offering licenses to interested parties in order to bring this technology to the market as rapidly as possible. Many Regional Bell Operating Companies offer voice mail services using stutter dial tone, and it is estimated that six million residential telephone lines now use stutter dial tone in the United States.

"The RBOCs will want to offer devices that carry our license to their customers. We have an aggressive licensing program which will make our first few licensees successful. In that regard we are pleased to announce Almeda as our first partner," Richmond also said.

Active Voice is a leading provider of PC-based voice processing systems, with offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, China and Australia. Based in Seattle, its products are sold throughout the world by independent dealers in the telecommunications industry.

CONTACT: Active Voice Corp., Seattle

Diane M. Williams, 206/441-4700, x132

e-mail: dwilliams@avoice.com

NOTE TO EDITORS: In the Internet/email address noted in this news release, there is an "at" symbol between dwilliams and avoice.com. This symbol may not appear properly in some systems.