Ringback Tone Patent

What is a ringback tone? The term "ringback tone" is typically used to refer to the audible ringing that is heard on the telephone line by the calling party after dialing and prior to the call being answered at the distant end. Already very popular in Asia, cell phone users can modify their ringback tone through their cellular service provider to choose certain songs or messages to be played to specific callers. This technology is currently being developed by major U.S. carriers including Verizon. A cell phone user may get online and pay an annual fee to use a specific song, quote or message for their callers. It is rumored that in addition to the per tone fee, there will be a monthly subscription to have the service.

Now almost two years after ringback tones were introduced by wireless carriers, the U.S. Patent Office granted a patent to Karl Seelig, CEO of Perceptive Impression, for ringback signal replacement. The ringback signal replacement market is expected to garner $3 billion in revenue over the next several years. The Seelig patent covers replacing ringback signals with any acoustic sound presentation.

Perceptive Impression has another idea for ringback tones aside from allowing cell phone users to customize their ringback: ADVERTISING. The company's goal is to create a new advertising platform utilizing short ads that companies create. A February survey concludes that 89% of major brands are planning to market via mobile phones by 2008. The survey further concludes that 50% of the brands plan to spend between 5% and 25% of their marketing budget in mobile phone advertising over the next five years. Yikes. I can already imagine what ads I might be forced to listen to every time I call my friends.