Patents Examined by Ming Chow
  • Patent number: 6690774
    Abstract: A method for recording an audible event includes receiving an incoming call from a calling party on a first calling line. The incoming call is connected to a voice mailbox associated with a voicemail witness service. An extended timeout period associated with the incoming call. Telecommunications data associated with an audible event is received over the first calling line for up to the extended timeout period. A voicemail witness record is generated by storing a representation of the received telecommunications data and associating the stored representation with the calling party.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 17, 2001
    Date of Patent: February 10, 2004
    Assignee: BellSouth Intellectual Property Corporation
    Inventors: E-Lee Chang, Edward Michael Silver
  • Patent number: 6683941
    Abstract: A method, system, and program for controlling advertising output during hold periods are provided. A context for a call on hold is detected. An advertisement is selected for output during a hold space a hold period of the call according to the context. Output of the advertisement during the hold space is controlled, wherein the advertisement is specified according to the context. The advertisement may include text messages, audio messages, video messages, for advertising a product or service or making an announcement.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 17, 2001
    Date of Patent: January 27, 2004
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Michael Wayne Brown, Joseph Herbert McIntyre, Michael A. Paolini, James Mark Weaver, Scott Lee Winters
  • Patent number: 6678358
    Abstract: An automated nodal calling system comprises a database having a plurality of phone numbers and associated geographic identifiers. In the event of an emergency, an emergency calling area is defined and a message is recorded for delivery to the callees in the emergency calling area. The system generates a call request for all phone numbers having an associated geographic identifiers within the emergency calling area. Each call request contains various pieces of information important to proper completion of the phone call identified in the call request. All of the call requests are stored in a queue and the system determines whether to process each call request from a local node or a remote node. A call request to be processed from a local node is delivered to a template program which connects to the telecommunications system and completes the call request to the identified phone number. After the local node completes the call request, a call response is generated to identify the result of the call request.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2001
    Date of Patent: January 13, 2004
    Assignee: Sigma Communications, Inc.
    Inventors: Al Langsenkamp, Kent E. Kercheval
  • Patent number: 6654447
    Abstract: A system establishes a session with a voice response unit. The system receives a pause signal and pauses the session, and receives a resume signal and resumes the session. A message interrupted by the pause may be continued or replayed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 13, 2000
    Date of Patent: November 25, 2003
    Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc.
    Inventor: Rohit Dewan
  • Patent number: 6584180
    Abstract: An automatic voice response section transfers voice input from a caller to a voice recognition section, and the voice recognition section generates a voice recognition result. The voice recognition result is synthesized at the voice response section into a voice confirmation message and sent back to the caller for confirmation that the voice input was correctly recognized. When a response by the caller to the confirmation message is negative, the automatic voice response section plays the previously received voice input from the caller as audio to a screener interface. A screener listens to the audio and enters a screener recognition result at the screener interface. The screener recognition result is synthesized into a voice response message by the voice response unit and transmitted to the caller for confirmation. Only if the caller responds negatively to the message based upon the screener recognition result is the call switched to an operator for manual handling of the callers special problems.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 16, 2001
    Date of Patent: June 24, 2003
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corp.
    Inventor: Kazuo Nemoto
  • Patent number: 6563911
    Abstract: The present invention a speech enabled automatic telephone dialer device, system, and method using a spoken name corresponding to name-telephone number data of computer-based address book programs. The invention includes user telephones connected to a PBX-type telephony mechanism, which is connected to a telephony board of a name dialer device. User computer workstations containing loaded address book programs with name-telephone number data are connected to the name dialer device. The name dialer device includes a host computer in a network; a telephony board for controlling the PBX for dialing; memory within the host computer for storing software and name-telephone number data; and, software to access computer-based address book programs, to receive voice inputs from the PBX-type telephony mechanism, to create converted phonemes from names to match voice inputs with specific name-telephone number data from the computer-based address book programs for initiating an automatic dialing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 23, 2001
    Date of Patent: May 13, 2003
    Assignee: iVoice, Inc.
    Inventor: Jerome R. Mahoney