Patent US 6,970,544

An apparatus and method are disclosed for accessing telephone or cellular originating central office equipment to control the disclosure of a calling party directory telephone number or, if applicable or available, directory telephone number and name to a called party who subscribes to a Custom Local Area Signaling System (CLASS) service including Caller Identification (Caller ID), which discloses the calling party directory telephone number or directory telephone number and name to the called party, by performing a desired one of a plurality of automatic and/or manual operations. Method is disclosed for connecting to a called station idle or busy telephone line with ringing signals or a call-waiting tone signal and then transmitting the calling party directory telephone number or, if applicable or available, directory telephone number and name to the called station during a silent interval between the ringing signals or after the call-waiting tone signal responsively to receiving the calling party directory telephone number flagged as public from originating central office equipment of the calling party indicating that the directory telephone number or the directory telephone number and name are to be disclosed at the called station. An apparatus and method are also disclosed for receiving, displaying and storing at a called station during a silent interval between ringing signals or after a call-waiting tone signal a calling party directory telephone number or directory telephone number and name from telephone or cellular company terminating central office equipment. In addition, an apparatus and method are disclosed for permitting recall of a stored directory telephone number or directory telephone number and name of a previous caller from memory for visual display, and for permitting automatic dialing of the stored directory telephone number to return a call.