Patents by Inventor Jeffrey MacAllister

Jeffrey MacAllister has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20080015864
    Abstract: A dialog management system functions to manage the dialog between a user of a computer system and one or more speech enabled software applications. The user provides spoken input to a microphone connected to the computer system, and hears responses from one or more applications through a speaker connected to the computer system. The dialog management system includes a dialog manager, a turn manager, a speak queue, dialog contexts, and dialog state. The dialog manager provides top-level control of the dialog and stores responses based on the user's spoken input in a speak queue for later output to the user. The turn manager controls delivery of the responses to the user based on the dialog context and the dialog state, to provide a polite asynchronous dialog with the user that enables the user to be in control of the dialog. The dialog context provides information about each dialog. The dialog state provides information about whose turn it is (computer or user) to speak.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 16, 2007
    Publication date: January 17, 2008
    Inventors: Steven Ross, Jeffrey MacAllister, Christopher Hyland, Marijane Zeller, Kathleen Howard
  • Publication number: 20070265847
    Abstract: A conversation manager processes spoken utterances from a user of a computer. The conversation manager includes a semantics analysis module and a syntax manager. A domain model that is used in processing the spoken utterances includes an ontology (i.e., world view for the relevant domain of the spoken utterances), lexicon, and syntax definitions. The syntax manager combines the ontology, lexicon, and syntax definitions to generate a grammatic specification. The semantics module uses the grammatic specification and the domain model to develop a set of frames (i.e., internal representation of the spoken utterance). The semantics module then develops a set of propositions from the set of frames. The conversation manager then uses the set of propositions in further processing to provide a reply to the spoken utterance.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 7, 2007
    Publication date: November 15, 2007
    Inventors: Steven Ross, Robert Armes, Julie Alweis, Elizabeth Brownholtz, Jeffrey MacAllister