Automatic notification of receipt of electronic mail (e-mail) via telephone system without requiring log-on to e-mail server

Claim 1

An automatic electronic mail (e-mail) notification system for use with a computer based communications system and a telephone system, the commnunications system comprising: a plurality of computers each having means for sending and receiving e-mail; a network connecting the computers, the network including: an e-mail server having means for receiving from the network e-mail messages addressed to selected recipients, and means for storing each of the e-mail messages in an addressable mail box having a recipient identifier associated therewith; the telephone system comprising: a plurality of telephone nodes, each node having a respective subscriber identifier; a voice messaging system having a voice mail notification signal generator for generating a voice mail notification signal in response to the receipt of a voice mail message, and signal transmitting means for sending the voice mail notification signal to the telephone node corresponding to a subscriber identifier associated with the voice mail message; the e-mail notification system comprising: a recipient--subscriber correlator for correlating the recipient identifier of an e-mail message with a respective subscriber identifier; an e-mail notification signal generator responsive to the receipt of an e-mail message by the e-mail server for actuating the voice mail system to send an e-mail notification signal the telephone node corresponding to the respective subscriber identifier; and notification means connected to each of the telephone nodes for notifying the recipient of the receipt of the e-mail by the e-mail server in response to receipt of the e-mail notification signal.