US Patent 7627094 Selective response telephone answering system

A telephone answering system and method for playing particular different greeting messages to different callers. When an incoming call is received, either caller-ID is decoded, or the caller's identification is determined some other way if possible, and if the particular caller's identification is on a list, a special message can be played for that caller if such a message as been stored and is active. Any other caller receives a different message, usually a default greeting message. Special messages can be date/time stamped to die or change after particular dates or times. Messages and caller identification can be loaded into the system remotely.