WEB BASED PERSONAL DIRECTORY

• US 20020057783A1
• Filed: 11/17/1998
• Published: 05/16/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 04/03/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Clearinghouse LLC (RPX Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nortel Networks Limited (Nortel Networks Corporation)
• Inventors: KNIGHT, STEPHEN, KREDO, THOMAS J.
• Granted Patent: US 6,714,641 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/218.01
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/00 Network arrangements, protocols or services for addressing or naming
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4557 Directories for hybrid networks, e.g. including telephone numbers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/401 wherein the services involve a main real-time session and one or more additional parallel real-time or time sensitive sessions, e.g. white board sharing or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42153 by subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4931 Directory assistance systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4938 comprising a voice browser which renders and interprets, e.g. VoiceXML

Abstract

A personal directory system 10 has a translation server 40 for verifying the identity of a subscriber and recognizing the name of one or more subscribers that are stored on a personal directory of another subscriber. A caller is connected by a public telephone switch to the server 40 that accesses a personal directory computer 60 located on the World Wide Web 50. The requested number and/or speed dial number are converted from text to speech and the public telephone switch automatically dials the requested number.

Claims

1. A personal directory system comprising:

a public telephone coupled to a public telephone network, said switch including means for receiving a telephone call from a subscriber requesting a personal directory for the subscriber, means for establishing a voice path to the subscriber, and means for routing the call to a number supplied by a translation server;

a translation sever coupled to the switch and to a computer network and comprising means for receiving a call from the switch requesting a personal directory, means for storing computer network addresses of personal directories of subscribers and means for searching said stored addresses for the address of the personal directory of the subscriber and means for receiving a telephone number from one of the personal directories on the computer network and for transmitting said telephone number to the switch; and

a personal directory server located on the computer network and storing a plurality of personal directories at different addresses on said network, each personal directory comprising a plurality of pairs of names of other subscribers and their corresponding telephone numbers, said plurality of pairs having been selected by the subscriber;

means for searching the stored telephone numbers in the personal directory of the subscriber for a desired telephone number and means for transmitting a selected stored number to the translation server.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the computer network is a wide area public network.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the wide area public networks is the World Wide Web of the Internet.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the translation server comprises a text-to-speech module for converting a personal directory entry to a name or telephone number or both.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the translation server comprises a voice recognition module for recognizing an entry in the personal directory when the entry is spoken by a caller.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the translation server comprises a caller identification module for verifying the identity of the subscriber.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the translation server supplies a requested personal directory number to the switch and the switch automatically dials the personal directory number.

8. A method for automatically dialing a telephone number on a public telephone network from a personal directory stored on a computer network comprising the steps of:

establishing a voice path from a personal directory subscriber to a translation server that holds an address for a personal directory of the subscriber;

searching a memory in the translation sever for a computer network address of the personal directory of the subscriber;

connecting the translation server to said computer network address;

storing at the computer network address in a personal directory a plurality of pairs of names of other subscribers and their corresponding telephone numbers;

retrieving from the personal directory a desired telephone number; and

automatically dialing the retrieved number.

9. The method of claim 8 comprising a further step of accessing the personal directory of the subscriber and modifying the pairs of stored names and telephone numbers.

10. The method of claim 8 comprising the further step of verifying the identity of a caller before accessing the personal directory of the subscriber.