Phil W
Where leadership meets strategy, technology, the social sciences and innovation
Who invented the Do Not Disturb (DND) button on telephones?
I first saw it on office phones in the mid-1970s but I'm sure it is older. It was a signal that you didn't want to be disturbed. Different phone systems handled DND differently. Some gave a busy signal, some routed the call to a different number, and later some routed to voice mail. I'm trying to dig up the first appearance of DND and its full origin story.
Good Answers (2)
Reinhold H
Director of Engineering at Dymedix Corporation
Best Answers in: Telecommunications (1), Software Development (1)
In March of 1967 the Northern Electric Company (more recently known as Nortel) was granted a patent (3,321,580) that claims a privacy feature button on the station set that would allow the PBX stored program control system to reroute the call away from the called station. This common feature on the feature set station phones came to be known as the Do Not Disturb Button (DND). This feature became so popular that soon after companies like Mitel, Rolm, Siemens, etc followed the call of the Northern Electric Company...
Hope this helps.
Clarification added May 11, 2007:
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And, the honorable Dr Watson was long dead at that time the invention was filed...may he rest in peace!
Lawrence David S
Antitrust and financial services litigation
Best Answers in: Commercial Real Estate (1), Certification and Licenses (1), Exporting/Importing (1), Property Law (1), Quality Management and Standards (1), Ethics (1)
Watson.
