CommerceTel Acquires Key Telecom Patent

CommerceTel Corporation, an award-winning provider of proprietary mobile marketing technologies and solutions, announced today that it has acquired a key patent in the Telecommunications and Internet sector.
US Patent number 6,788,769 B1 covers a method and system for using telephone numbers as a key to address email and online content without the use of a lookup database. Using this system, a phone number is used to access a website or an email address in exactly the same way it is used to dial a telephone.
“While domain names have dominated the addressing scheme for the traditional Internet, phone numbers have become the de facto standard response mechanism in the mobile marketing space,” said Dennis Becker, CEO of CommerceTel. “Obtaining this patent provides CommerceTel with a highly relevant intellectual property position in this rapidly growing space.”
“A directory mapping a phone number to a Website is utilized whenever a consumer sends a text message to retrieve a link to a mobile Website, and this form of interaction is only becoming more prevalent in the marketplace,” added Becker. “This patent embodies just this application and we’re excited to add it to our portfolio.”
In addition to telephone number keyed addressing, CommerceTel’s patented system details the use of application-based directory systems utilizing telephone-keyed addressing to bridge between the existing numbers and addresses of any of the owner’s communications devices. For example, entering a phone number into a web interface could present a menu of communications options, allowing connection to a website, to a home, office and/or mobile phone, even to a fax machine. This element to the claims could have huge ramifications in the industry as the line between the “Web” and mobile applications continues to blur.