Patents Assigned to AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
  • System and method for controlling presentations using a multimodal interface
    Patent number: 8977965
    Abstract: The invention provides for a system, method, and computer readable medium storing instructions related to controlling a presentation in a multimodal system. The method embodiment of the invention is a method for the retrieval of information on the basis of its content for real-time incorporation into an electronic presentation. The method comprises receiving from a presenter a content-based request for at least one segment of a first plurality of segments within a media presentation and while displaying the media presentation to an audience, displaying to the presenter a second plurality of segments in response to the content-based request. The computing device practicing the method receives a selection from the presenter of a segment from the second plurality of segments and displays to the audience the selected segment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 19, 2005
    Date of Patent: March 10, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Patrick Ehlen, David Crawford Gibbon, Mazin Gilbert, Michael Johnston, Zhu Liu, Behzad Shahraray
  • Method and system for enhancing a speech database
    Patent number: 8977552
    Abstract: A system, method and computer readable medium that enhances a speech database for speech synthesis is disclosed. The method may include labeling audio files in a primary speech database, identifying segments in the labeled audio files that have varying pronunciations based on language differences, identifying replacement segments in a secondary speech database, enhancing the primary speech database by substituting the identified secondary speech database segments for the corresponding identified segments in the primary speech database, and storing the enhanced primary speech database for use in speech synthesis.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 28, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 10, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Alistair D. Conkie, Ann K. Syrdal
  • System and method for event driven publish-subscribe communications
    Patent number: 8972451
    Abstract: The present invention provides a system and a method for delivering an event from an event publisher to an event subscriber via an event broker. The event broker performs several functions such as receiving an event published by an event publisher of a first domain, assigning a priority based on a second domain to a plurality of subscribers of the second domain, processing the event based on a rule and the priority, and further delivering the event published by the event publisher of the first domain to the plurality of event subscribers of the second domain in accordance with the priority.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 5, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 3, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Hossein Eslambolchi, John McCanuel, Prakash Vasa
  • Method for secure remote backup
    Patent number: 8966261
    Abstract: The present invention is directed to an architecture and mechanism for securely backing up files and directories on a local machine onto untrusted servers over an insecure network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 5, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 24, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventor: Aviel D. Rubin
  • System and method to guide active participation in peer-to-peer systems with passive monitoring environment
    Patent number: 8959243
    Abstract: A method includes identifying shared content by inspecting a peer-to-peer traffic flow and identifying source peers providing the shared content, and requesting the shared content from the source peers. The method further includes receiving requests for the shared content from requesting peers, identifying requesting peers based on the requests for the shared content, and providing the shared content to a local subset of the requesting peers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 1, 2008
    Date of Patent: February 17, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Alexandre Gerber, Oliver Spatscheck, Subhabrata Sen, Ajay Todimala
  • Method and apparatus for provisioning financial data
    Patent number: 8954352
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for storing financial data utilizing a communications network is described. In one embodiment, provisioning access is provided to a plurality of unrelated financial entities. The financial data received from the plurality of unrelated financial entities are stored in a secure data store, e.g., a secure network based mailbox.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 28, 2005
    Date of Patent: February 10, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Marian Croak, Hossein Eslambolchi
  • Method and apparatus for providing an audible calling party identification for a call waiting service
    Patent number: 8953763
    Abstract: The present invention enables users of packet-switched network services, e.g., VoIP network services, to hear a very gentle whispering tone that quietly conveys the identity of the calling party when they are engaged in conversation and to receive a call-waiting signal. The tone is audible only to the called party but does not mute the ongoing conversation path. This enables subscribed users to hear their ongoing conversation while receiving the whispering tone.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 18, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 10, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Marian Croak, Hossein Eslambolchi
  • Targeted caching to reduce bandwidth consumption
    Patent number: 8954548
    Abstract: A system includes a name server, an edge cache server, and a local cache server. The name server is configured to provide an anycast IP address in response to a request for an IP address of an origin hostname from a client system. The edge cache server is configured to respond to the anycast IP address and a unicast IP address and to retrieve content from an origin. The local cache server includes a storage and is configured to respond to the anycast IP address, to retrieve content from the edge cache server, and provide the content to a client system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 27, 2008
    Date of Patent: February 10, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventor: Alan Glasser
  • Spectrum management system for municipal spectrum using guided cognitive radio
    Patent number: 8954010
    Abstract: Described is a system and method for assigning a frequency to an access point in a wireless network comprising a plurality of access points. The system and method includes accessing a rule-base to obtain a set of rules for the wireless network, accessing a license database to obtain information about relevant wireless nodes in a region, creating a list of possible primary node frequencies from a list of frequencies associated with primary wireless nodes in the license database, creating a list of possible secondary node frequencies from a list of frequencies associated with secondary wireless nodes in the license database, identifying a list of clear frequencies from a set of unused frequencies, selecting a frequency from frequencies in the lists of possible primary node frequencies, possible secondary node frequencies, and clear frequencies and registering the frequency in the license database.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 11, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 10, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventor: Robert Raymond Miller, II
  • System and method for generating coded video sequences from still media
    Patent number: 8955031
    Abstract: The invention provides a system and method that transforms a set of still/motion media (i.e., a series of related or unrelated still frames, web-pages rendered as images, or video clips) or other multimedia, into a video stream that is suitable for delivery over a display medium, such as TV, cable TV, computer displays, wireless display devices, etc. The video data stream may be presented and displayed in real time or stored and later presented through a set-top box, for example. Because these media are transformed into coded video streams (e.g. MPEG-2, MPEG-4, etc.), a user can watch them on a display screen without the need to connect to the Internet through a service provider. The user may request and interact with the desired media through a simple telephone interface, for example. Moreover, several wireless and cable-based services can be developed on the top of this system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 8, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 10, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Andrea Basso, Eric Cosatto, Steven Lloyd Greenspan, David M. Weimer
  • System and method of dialog trajectory analysis
    Patent number: 8949131
    Abstract: The invention comprises computer-readable media, methods and systems for performing a dialog analysis and using that analysis to release an updated spoken dialog system. The method embodiment of the invention comprises receiving data associated with dialogs, extracting turn by turn details of the dialog and generating from the extracted details an empirical call-flow representation of the dialog. The call data may be call-logs and user audio. The empirical call-flow representation may be a finite-state machine with nodes that represent call-states and the arcs between nodes represent user responses. Nodes may also represent sub-dialogs. The call-flow representation is presented graphically to a user for easier analysis and understanding. Significant changes in the dialog can be identified as hot-spots for improvement in the next release of the spoken dialog system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 26, 2012
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Alicia Abella, Jeremy Huntley Wright
  • Method and system for reduction of peak-to-average power ratio of transmission signals comprising overlapping waveforms
    Patent number: 8948808
    Abstract: The present invention provides a method and system for reducing the peak to average power ratio (PAP) of a signal with low computational complexity. According to one embodiment, the present invention is applied to reduce the PAP of an OFDM signal. According to an alternative embodiment, the present invention, is applied to reduce the PAP of a CDMA signal. Rather than seeking the optimum solution, which involves significant computational complexity, the present invention provides for a number of sub-optimal techniques for reducing the PAP of an OFDM signal but with much lower computational complexity.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 10, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Leonard Joseph Cimini, Jr., Nelson Ray Sollenberger
  • Image data collection from mobile vehicles with computer, GPS, and IP-based communication
    Patent number: 8947262
    Abstract: A system and method to capture a plurality of images and store the captured images. The system has multiple camera systems capable of transmitting image data. At least one camera system is equipped with an apparatus for determining location coordinates such as GPS. A computer system monitors location coordinates, retrieves image data from the camera systems, and stores the image data into a file. A contiguous array of location coordinates is entered and the computer system locates camera systems within the contiguous array of location coordinates; retrieves image data from the located camera systems; and files the image data taken from each of the camera systems to obtain a file of image data. The system provides the ability to serially interleave frames or video captured from multiple sources.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 17, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Frank Rauscher, Carl E. Werner
  • Recognizing the numeric language in natural spoken dialogue
    Patent number: 8949127
    Abstract: A system and a method are provided. A speech recognition processor receives unconstrained input speech and outputs a string of words. The speech recognition processor is based on a numeric language that represents a subset of a vocabulary. The subset includes a set of words identified as being for interpreting and understanding number strings. A numeric understanding processor contains classes of rules for converting the string of words into a sequence of digits. The speech recognition processor utilizes an acoustic model database. A validation database stores a set of valid sequences of digits. A string validation processor outputs validity information based on a comparison of a sequence of digits output by the numeric understanding processor with valid sequences of digits in the validation database.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 17, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Mazin G. Rahim, Giuseppe Riccardi, Jeremy Huntley Wright, Bruce Melvin Buntschuh, Allen Louis Gorin
  • System and method of providing a spoken dialog interface to a website
    Patent number: 8949132
    Abstract: Disclosed is a method for training a spoken dialog service component from website data. Spoken dialog service components typically include an automatic speech recognition module, a language understanding module, a dialog management module, a language generation module and a text-to-speech module. The method includes selecting anchor texts within a website based on a term density, weighting those anchor texts based on a percent of salient words to total words, and incorporating the weighted anchor texts into a live spoken dialog interface, the weights determining a level of incorporation into the live spoken dialog interface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 25, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Srinivas Bangalore, Junlan Feng, Mazin G. Rahim
  • Method and apparatus for routing a call in a communications network
    Patent number: 8942367
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for routing a call based on electronic calendar entries in a communications network is described. In one embodiment, a call request to establish a connection with a subscriber of network services is received. An electronic calendar associated with the subscriber is subsequently accessed. Afterwards, the call request is routed to a phone number associated to a present agenda activity detailed in the electronic calendar.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2005
    Date of Patent: January 27, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Marian Croak, Hossein Eslambolchi
  • Training-based channel estimation for multiple-antennas
    Patent number: 8942335
    Abstract: The burden of designing multiple training sequences for systems having multiple transmit antennas, is drastically reduced by employing a single sequence from which the necessary multiple sequences are developed. The single sequence is selected to create sequences that have an impulse-like autocorrelation function and zero cross correlations. A sequence of any desired length Nt can be realized for an arbitrary number of channel taps, L. The created sequences can be restricted to a standard constellation (that is used in transmitting information symbols) so that a common constellation mapper is used for both the information signals and the training sequence. In some applications a training sequence may be selected so that it is encoded with the same encoder that is used for encoding information symbols. Both block and trellis coding is possible in embodiments that employ this approach.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 11, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 27, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Naofal Al-Dhahir, Christine Fragouli, William Turin
  • Per-conference-leg recording control for multimedia conferencing
    Patent number: 8942364
    Abstract: A centralized network system allows users at different remote sources to initiate a process to disable recording of different communication signals from the different remote sources. The communication signals are received from the different remote sources during conferences. A user request is also received from one of the remote sources to disable recording of one of the different communication signals. Users at multiple of the different remote sources are simultaneously authorized and enabled to begin a process to disable recording of one of the different communication signals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 15, 2013
    Date of Patent: January 27, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: John Gerow Ramage, Benjamin J. Stern
  • Wavelength real time display on the equipment for WDM optical networking systems with wavelength tunable capability
    Patent number: 8942563
    Abstract: A wavelength tunable device for use in a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) system comprising a display device for displaying at least one operating wavelength of the wavelength tunable device. The display device is electrically coupled to a control unit in the wavelength tunable device so as to display the tuned wavelength in real time. The wavelength tunable device may be, in exemplary embodiments, an optical transponder, wavelength division demultiplexer, or wavelength division multiplexer. In embodiments where the optical equipment has a plurality of tunable ports, the display device is adapted to display the operating wavelength of each tunable port.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 9, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 27, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventor: Guodong Zhang
  • Method and system for assigning tasks to workers
    Patent number: 8938064
    Abstract: A method and system for assigning tasks can receive requested tasks, keep a requested-task queue, keep one or more worker statuses associated with respective workers, and assign the requested tasks from the requested-task queue to selected ones of the workers. In one embodiment, the requested tasks are telephone calls received by a network based contact center, and the workers are telephone agents associated with the network based contact center.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 19, 2012
    Date of Patent: January 20, 2015
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Reuben Klein, Daniel Sujansky