For many of us, few phone calls are more unwelcome than those that come from large, impersonal call centers, especially if they’re looking for money that’s owed them. I haven’t had one in years, but college loan repayment can be a difficult, even shocking new routine for many of us when we’re in our early 20s, and things admittedly were touch-and-go for a while with me.

 

What I never would have guessed back then is that some day I’d get an insider’s view of the incredibly complicated technology that goes into call center services and the wider industry, whether that’s “interactive voice response” systems, or “IVR,” cloud-based customer service communities, workforce management strategies or integration with Asterisk (News - Alert), the popular open source telephony platform.

 

Today, a Carlsbad, California-based company whose flagship product is designed to help call centers and collection agencies in their outbound campaigns announced that it’s taking steps to gain intellectual property rights for technology related to caller ID projection.

 

Officials at NobelBiz Inc. – a facilities-based carrier that focuses on adding long-distance services to contact centers – say they’re retaining Gibbons P.C. to direct its intellectual property campaign.

 

According to Rich Mahfouz, NobelBiz’s (News - Alert) chief executive officer, the company has invested “considerable resources” inventing, developing, marketing, and providing its so-called “LocalTouch” service.

 

“Gibbons was chosen for their reputation and expertise in IP enforcement matters,” Mahfouz said. “They have been retained to protect our investment and to support the licensees of our service. A patent not only protects the holder from those who offer infringing services, but also may allow for compensatory relief from those who use an infringing service.”

 

LocalTouch – used in about 300 call centers right now – integrates with existing telephony infrastructures and is designed to boost contact rates at outbound centers and RPCs for collection agencies. The service, in some cases, has boosted contact rates by more than 30 percent and also helped with “list penetration.”

 

Officials at NobelBiz say they’ll continue to notify parties offering services covered by its published patent applications as well as users of those services.

 

“Under U.S. patent law, patent owners have the right to seek damages from infringers dating from the publication date of the corresponding patent application,” NobelBiz says.

 

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