Patents Assigned to American Telephone and Telegraph Company and AT&T Information Systems
  • Patent number: 4713564
    Abstract: The opening and closure of the contacts of a push-button actuated switch duces across impedance means a voltage which is stably high and low when such contacts are maintained closed and open, respectively. Bouncing of the contacts after their initial closures and openings produces superposition on the stable levels of such voltage of trains of impulses caused by such bouncing. A bistable semiconductor flip-flop is coupled to the impedance means to sense such voltage and to assume a "high" state and a "low" state only when the stable level of such voltage is, respectively, high and low and, further, the flip-flop receives a clock signal. A retriggerable semiconductor monostable multivibrator is coupled to such impedance means to be triggered by such impulses from its stable "off" state to its unstable "on" state which is repetitively renewed by repetitive retriggering of the multivibrator.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 19, 1985
    Date of Patent: December 15, 1987
    Assignees: American Telephone and Telegraph Company, AT&T Information Systems, AT&T Bell Laboratories
    Inventors: David B. Kimball, Ruloff F. Kip, Jr.
  • Patent number: 4710760
    Abstract: A touch-sensitive device comprising a photoelastic screen having light reflecting edges and a unique light emitting/receiving module placed at two of the four corners of the screen advantageously determines the location at which a force is applied to the screen. Circularly and linearly polarized light focused into the photoelastic screen by the modules reflects off the edges of the screen and is returned to the modules where it is absorbed by a circular polarizer. The polarization of light passing through a point at which the screen is touched is changed thereby allowing these rays or signals to pass through each module's absorber. The location as well as the magnitude and direction of the force imparted to the screen by the touch is then determined from the changes in the signals that pass through the absorber.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 7, 1985
    Date of Patent: December 1, 1987
    Assignee: American Telephone and Telegraph Company, AT&T Information Systems Inc.
    Inventor: Leonard R. Kasday
  • Patent number: 4710954
    Abstract: A line switch for a telephone set comprises a lever rockably mounted in the tand for the set and having as a rear part a plunger fin received in a slot passing through the stand to a handset cradle on its top. The lever has at its front a head carrying on its underside a pair of metal leaf springs of which front portions form spring contacts disposed over corresponding electroconductive pads on a printed wiring board mounted within the stand. The lever is biased by a torque spring to yieldably hold the upper part of the fin in the cradle. Removal and replacement of a handset from and to the cradle actuates the lever to produce engagement and disengagement, respectively, of the spring contacts with their corresponding pads. Such spring contacts and pads form, electrically speaking, a line switch adapted upon such engagement and disengagement, respectively, to produce a "short" and an "open" of terminations at the set of the tip and ring leads therefor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 3, 1985
    Date of Patent: December 1, 1987
    Assignee: American Telephone and Telegraph Company AT&T Information Systems
    Inventors: Francis S. Doyle, Randall W. France
  • Patent number: 4704606
    Abstract: A packet switching system is disclosed for transmitting variable length packets between system ports. Each byte of each packet has a special one-bit field for indicating whether the byte is the last byte of a packet. A "1" in this field specifies that the byte is the last byte of a packet and activates port control circuitry that changes the potential on a system control conductor to indicate that the system data bus is now idle and free for use by other ports.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 24, 1987
    Date of Patent: November 3, 1987
    Assignee: American Telephone and Telegraph Company and AT&T Information Systems Inc.
    Inventor: Lloyd A. Hasley
  • Patent number: 4700382
    Abstract: A voice-switched telephone circuit with center idle state improves bi-dirional gain control in loudspeaking telephones and thereby enhances the natural quality of interactive conversation. The voice-switched telephone includes: a transmit channel having a microphone and a three-state amplifier; a receiver channel having a three-state amplifier and a loudspeaker; and a hybrid circuit interconnecting the transmit and receive channels to a two-wire telephone line. The present invention is characterized by independent signal level detecting circuits for the transmit and receive channels. When the magnitude of the signal energy in the transmit channel exceeds a predetermined threshold, the transmit channel amplification is increased and the receive channel amplification is decreased by fixed equal amounts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 1986
    Date of Patent: October 13, 1987
    Assignee: American Telephone and Telegraph Company, AT&T Information Systems, Inc.
    Inventors: Donald R. Means, Robert C. True, Noble E. Wickliff
  • Patent number: 4698802
    Abstract: Apparatus for and a method of inserting circuit switch information and packetized data into different time slots of a time division multiplexed bus. A memory having a location individual to each time slot is written with information specifying whether the time slot individual to each location is to serve the circuit switch information or the packet data. The readout of each memory location during the occurrence of it's associated time slot controllably effects the application of either the circuit switch information or the packet data to the bus.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 7, 1986
    Date of Patent: October 6, 1987
    Assignee: American Telephone and Telegraph Company and AT&T Information Systems Inc.
    Inventors: Louis R. Goke, Gary J. Grimes
  • Patent number: 4694196
    Abstract: A clock recovery circuit for recovering the clock from an incoming data stream. The circuit comprises a transition detector and a module 3 counter operating at three times the expected rate of the incoming clock. A clock pulse is generated by the counter one count interval after a transition is detected.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 7, 1984
    Date of Patent: September 15, 1987
    Assignee: American Telephone and Telegraph Company and AT&T Information Systems
    Inventors: Lloyd A. Hasley, Jaan Raamot
  • Patent number: 4691363
    Abstract: A silicon micro-transmitter chip is housed within top and bottom closures snap-fitted together by legs and catches on the two closures. The chip is mounted between two acoustic cavities in the closures by a plate part of a configured metal sheet having other strip parts extending through grooves in the bottom closure to its outside where the strips are bent to provide arms for surface mounting the entire device on a printed wiring board. The sheet serves both as a continuous strap for effecting such surface mounting and as an electrode for connecting a terminal of the chip to ground. Other terminals of the chip are connectable to the board by flat leads passing through other grooves in the bottom closure to its outside where they are bent for surface mounting purposes. The housing formed by the two closures includes an adhesive impregnated gasket for providing an acoustic seal between the two cavities as to which the air pressures therein are equalized by a vent hole in the plate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 11, 1985
    Date of Patent: September 1, 1987
    Assignee: American Telephone & Telegraph Company, AT&T Information Systems Inc.
    Inventor: Satya P. Khanna
  • Patent number: D293321
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 19, 1986
    Date of Patent: December 22, 1987
    Assignee: American Telephone & Telegraph Company, AT&T Information Systems Inc.
    Inventors: John Kowalik, Ronald Longhitano, Stephen G. Miggels, Walter J. Shakespeare, G. Varadarajan
  • Patent number: D293440
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 13, 1987
    Date of Patent: December 29, 1987
    Assignee: American Telephone and Telegraph Company, AT&T Information Systems Inc.
    Inventor: David M. Britz
  • Patent number: D294028
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 29, 1985
    Date of Patent: February 2, 1988
    Assignee: American Telephone and Telegraph Company, AT&T Information Systems
    Inventors: Randall S. Duell, Daniel K. Harden, Chris G. Johnson, Gordon E. Sylvester
  • Patent number: D294496
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 1987
    Date of Patent: March 1, 1988
    Assignee: American Telephone & Telegraph Company, AT&T Information Systems Inc.
    Inventors: Golub Drakulovic, Charles F. Liebler, Larry Sliker, Thomas L. Stahly, Donald E. Still, Gordon E. Sylvester