Patents Assigned to Ultratec, Inc.
  • Patent number: 7881441
    Abstract: Text captioned telephony, in which a telephone conversation is accompanied by text captions to aid in hard-of-hearing users, is implemented without the use of specialized text captioned telephone terminals by using a combination of an Internet appliance such as a computer and a telephone or by generalized voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) telephones.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2006
    Date of Patent: February 1, 2011
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert M. Engelke, Kevin R. Colwell, Troy D. Vitek, Kurt M. Gritner
  • Patent number: 7660398
    Abstract: Captioned telephone are devices intended to provide text captions to persons needing assistance with telephone communications. Captioned telephones provide text by using the services of a relay interposed between the assisted user and the hearing user, the relay providing the captioning for the assisted user. While captioned telephone service can be delivered over a single telephone line, if the assisted user has two telephone lines available for the captioning service, additional features and advantages are possible in the delivery of captioned telephone service to the user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 18, 2005
    Date of Patent: February 9, 2010
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert M. Engelke, Kevin R. Colwell, Troy D. Vitek
  • Patent number: 7555104
    Abstract: A relay is described to facilitate communication through the telephone system between hearing users and users who need or desire assistance in understanding voice communications. To overcome the speed limitations inherent in typing, the call assistant at the relay does not type most words but, instead, re-voices the words spoken by the hearing user into a computer operating a voice recognition software package trained to the voice of that call assistant. The text stream created by the computer and the voice of the hearing user are both sent to the assisted user so that the assisted user can be supplied with a visual text stream to supplement the voice communications. A time delay in the transmission of the voice of the hearing user through the relay is of assistance to the assisted user in comprehending the communications session.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 24, 2006
    Date of Patent: June 30, 2009
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventor: Robert M. Engelke
  • Publication number: 20080152093
    Abstract: A method of and system for operating a captioned telephone service, the method comprising the steps of providing words spoken by a remote user to a relay, at the relay, a call assistant listening to the words spoken by the remote user and re-voicing the words into a computer with voice recognition software trained to the voice of the call assistant to create a text stream of the words spoken by the remote user and presenting the text stream to an assisted user via a display.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 13, 2007
    Publication date: June 26, 2008
    Applicant: ULTRATEC, INC.
    Inventors: Robert M. Engleke, Kevin R. Colwell
  • Patent number: 7319740
    Abstract: An arrangement for providing captioned telephone service is provided which permits persons who are hard of hearing to receive captioning of their telephone communications as they need it. A personal interpreter/captioned telephone device can dial a relay on a second telephone line while the assisted user if conversing with a hearing user over a first telephone line. The second telephone line connects to a relay which provides voice to text translation service and returns a text stream to the captioned telephone device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 25, 2005
    Date of Patent: January 15, 2008
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert M. Engelke, Kevin Colwell
  • Patent number: 7006604
    Abstract: A relay is described to facilitate communication through the telephone system between hearing users and users who need or desire assistance in understanding voice communications. To overcome the speed limitations inherent in typing, the call assistant at the relay does not type most words but, instead, re-voices the words spoken by the hearing user into a computer operating a voice recognition software package trained to the voice of that call assistant. The text stream created by the computer and the voice of the hearing user are both sent to the assisted user so that the assisted user can be supplied with a visual text stream to supplement the voice communications. A time delay in the transmission of the voice of the hearing user through the relay is of assistance to the assisted user in comprehending the communications session.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 14, 2003
    Date of Patent: February 28, 2006
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventor: Robert M. Engelke
  • Patent number: 7003082
    Abstract: An arrangement for providing captioned telephone service is provided which permits persons who are hard of hearing to receive captioning of their telephone communications as they need it. A personal interpreter/captioned telephone device can dial a relay on a second telephone line while the assisted user if conversing with a hearing user over a first telephone line. The second telephone line connects to a relay which provides voice to text translation service and returns a text stream to the captioned telephone device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 5, 2003
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2006
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert M. Engelke, Kevin Colwell
  • Patent number: 6934366
    Abstract: A relay is described to facilitate communication through the telephone system between hearing users and users who need or desire assistance in understanding voice communications. To overcome the speed limitations inherent in typing, the call assistant at the relay does not type most words but, instead, re-voices the words spoken by the hearing user into a computer operating a voice recognition software package trained to the voice of that call assistant. The text stream created by the computer and the voice of the hearing user are both sent to the assisted user so that the assisted user can be supplied with a visual text stream to supplement the voice communications. A time delay in the transmission of the voice of the hearing user through the relay is of assistance in the assisted user comprehending the communications session.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2002
    Date of Patent: August 23, 2005
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert M. Engelke, Kevin Colwell, Troy D. Vitek, Kurt M. Gritner
  • Patent number: 6882707
    Abstract: A training method and apparatus to train a call assistant to operate a telephone relay system for the hearing impaired that uses a re-voicing technique to produce near real-time transcription of a telephone conversation for display on a caption telephone or other device. The invention simulates an actual relay call as realistically as possible and produces a report on the skill of the particular call assistant being trained.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 21, 2001
    Date of Patent: April 19, 2005
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert M Engelke, Kevin R. Colwell, Troy D. Vitek, Kurt M. Gritner, Jayne M. Turner, Pamela A. Frazier
  • Patent number: 6603835
    Abstract: An arrangement for providing captioned telephone service is provided which permits persons who are hard of hearing to receive captioning of their telephone communications as they need it. A personal interpreter/captioned telephone device can dial a relay on a second telephone line while the assisted user if conversing with a hearing user over a first telephone line. The second telephone line connects to a relay which provides voice to text translation service and returns a text stream to the captioned telephone device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 23, 2001
    Date of Patent: August 5, 2003
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert M. Engelke, Kevin Colwell
  • Patent number: 6594346
    Abstract: A relay is described to facilitate communication through the telephone system between hearing users and users who need or desire assistance in understanding voice communications. To overcome the speed limitations inherent in typing, the call assistant at the relay does not type most words but, instead, re-voices the words spoken by the hearing user into a computer operating a voice recognition software package trained to the voice of that call assistant. The text stream created by the computer and the voice of the hearing user are both sent to the assisted user so that the assisted user can be supplied with a visual text stream to supplement the voice communications. A time delay in the transmission of the voice of the hearing user through the relay is of assistance to the assisted user in comprehending the communications session.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 2001
    Date of Patent: July 15, 2003
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventor: Robert M. Engelke
  • Patent number: 6567503
    Abstract: An editing system for real-time remote transcription, such as may be used by deaf or hearing impaired individuals, displays transcribed text on a screen prior to transmission so that a human call assistant may identify words being held in a buffer by their spatial location on the screen to initiate a correction of those words either through speech or text entry.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 20, 2001
    Date of Patent: May 20, 2003
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert M. Engelke, Kevin R. Colwell, Troy D. Vitek, Kurt M. Gritner, Jayne M. Turner, Pamela A. Frazier
  • Patent number: 6549611
    Abstract: A system is described for assisting the hard of hearing in the use of the telephone, the system termed here text enhanced telephony or TET. The hard of hearing user uses a TET device or appliance which permits the user to speak and to hear the words spoken by the other party, the TET device also supplying to the user a text character stream of the words spoken by the other party. The TET system uses the system of voice-to-text relays, already in existence to assist the deaf community communicate with hearing persons over the telephone, to translate the spoken voice into a text stream. The TET relay and TET device are capable of separating voice and digital communications frequencies carrying text so that voice and a text communications stream of the words spoken by the voice can be carried over a common telephone line. The devices can also be capable of automated capabilities such that the devices can automatically configure a three-party relay call without the need for the user's instructions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 15, 2001
    Date of Patent: April 15, 2003
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert M. Engelke, Kevin Colwell
  • Patent number: 6510206
    Abstract: A relay is described to facilitate communication through the telephone system between deaf people and hearing people. To overcome the speed limitations inherent in typing, the call assistant at the relay does not type most words but, instead, re-voices the words spoken by the hearing person into a computer operating a voice recognition software package trained to the voice of that call assistant. The conversation-type flow of communications achieved by this type of relay enables the design of a new class of interpreters for the deaf.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 19, 2001
    Date of Patent: January 21, 2003
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert M. Engelke, Kevin Colwell
  • Patent number: 6493426
    Abstract: A relay is described to facilitate communication through the telephone system between hearing users and users who need or desire assistance in understanding voice communications. To overcome the speed limitations inherent in typing, the call assistant at the relay does not type most words but, instead, re-voices the words spoken by the hearing user into a computer operating a voice recognition software package trained to the voice of that call assistant. The text stream created by the computer and the voice of the hearing user are both sent to the assisted user so that the assisted user can be supplied with a visual text stream to supplement the voice communications. A time delay in the transmission of the voice of the hearing user through the relay is of assistance in the assisted user comprehending the communications session.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 2001
    Date of Patent: December 10, 2002
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert M. Engelke, Kevin Colwell, Troy D. Vitek, Kurt M. Gritner
  • Patent number: 6307921
    Abstract: A system is described for assisting the hard of hearing in the use of the telephone, the system termed here text enhanced telephony or TET. The hard of hearing user uses a TET device or appliance which permits the user to speak and to hear the words spoken by the other party, the TET device also supplying to the user a text character stream of the words spoken by the other party. The TET system uses the system of voice-to-text relays, already in existence to assist the deaf community communicate with hearing persons over the telephone, to translate the spoken voice into a text stream. The TET relay and TET device are capable of separating voice and digital communications frequencies carrying text so that voice and a text communications stream of the words spoken by the voice can be carried over a common telephone line. The devices can also be capable of automated capabilities such that the devices can automatically configure a three-party relay call without the need for the user's instructions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 17, 2000
    Date of Patent: October 23, 2001
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert M. Engelke, Kevin Colwell
  • Patent number: 6233314
    Abstract: A relay is described to facilitate communication through the telephone system between deaf people and hearing people. To overcome the speed limitations inherent in typing, the call assistant at the relay does not type most words but, instead, re-voices the words spoken by the hearing person into a computer operating a voice recognition software package trained to the voice of that call assistant. The conversation-type flow of communications achieved by this type of relay enables the design of a new class of interpreters for the deaf.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 8, 1999
    Date of Patent: May 15, 2001
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventor: Robert M. Engelke
  • Patent number: 6075841
    Abstract: A system is described for assisting the hard of hearing in the use of the telephone, in which an in-line text display is inserted in the telephone line before a standard telephone. The in-line display blocks text related digital communications signals to the standard telephone and decodes the text related digital signals to display on a built in display screen.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 7, 1997
    Date of Patent: June 13, 2000
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert M. Engelke, Kevin A. Colwell, Ronald W. Schultz, Troy Vitek
  • Patent number: 6075842
    Abstract: A system is described for assisting the hard of hearing in the use of the telephone, the system termed here text enhanced telephony or TET. The hard of hearing user uses a TET device or appliance which permits the user to speak and to hear the words spoken by the other party, the TET device also supplying to the user a text character stream of the words spoken by the other party. The TET system uses the system of voice-to-text relays, already in existence to assist the deaf community communicate with hearing persons over the telephone, to translate the spoken voice into a text stream. The TET relay and TET device are capable of separating voice and digital communications frequencies carrying text so that voice and a text communications stream of the words spoken by the voice can be carried over a common telephone line. The devices can also be capable of automated capabilities such that the devices can automatically configure a three-party relay call without the need for the user's instructions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 1998
    Date of Patent: June 13, 2000
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert M. Engelke, Kevin Colwell
  • Patent number: 5978654
    Abstract: A low cost alphanumeric paging entry and page receiving device for entering alphanumeric messages remotely from a telephone and receiving pages via radio frequency signals. The device is designed so that both page reception and alphanumeric page entry can be provided using substantially the same hardware. The entry functionality uses simplex communications, using a system of Baudot tones to send page messages to a paging system for transmission to other similar devices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 7, 1995
    Date of Patent: November 2, 1999
    Assignee: Ultratec, Inc.
    Inventors: Kevin Colwell, Robert M. Engelke