Systems, Methods, And Media For Automated Conference Calling

• US 20080037745A1
• Filed: 07/31/2006
• Published: 02/14/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Walker, Keith R., Ramamoorthy, Venkatesan
• Application Number:
  US11/461,371
• Publication Number:
  US 20080037745A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/201.01
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/088 Word spotting
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition speech recognition per se G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4931 Directory assistance systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/533 Voice mail systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/56 Arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities video conference systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/563 User guidance or feature selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/006 Networks other than PSTN/ISDN providing telephone service, e.g. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) , including next generation networks with a packet-switched transport layer H04L65/00 takes precedence; aspects not specific to the type of network H04M3/00; special services in those networks H04M3/42

Abstract

Systems, methods, and media for initiating a conference call with other communication devices are disclosed. Embodiments may include a method for initiating a conference call that may include receiving a verbal request to initiate a conference call and analyzing the request by parsing words in the request to detect one or more aliases in the request. Embodiments of the method may also include accessing one or more macros associated with each of the detected one or more aliases where each macro is adapted to dial a phone number. Embodiments of the method may also include initiating a conference call and performing a macro action for each of the associated macros to add participants associated with each detected alias to the initiated conference call. The aliases may be individual aliases having one associated macro or group aliases having a plurality of associated macros.

Claims

1. A method for initiating a conference call, the method comprising:

receiving a verbal request to initiate a conference call;

analyzing the request by parsing words in the request to detect one or more aliases in the request;

accessing one or more macros associated with each of the detected one or more aliases, each macro being adapted to dial a phone number;

initiating a conference call; and

performing a macro action for each of the associated macros to add participants associated with each detected alias to the initiated conference call.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving one or more macros.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein receiving one or more macros comprises receiving a contact list having a plurality of macros.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating one or more macros.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein generating one or more macros comprises:

analyzing a voice mail message by parsing words in the voice mail message;

determining one or more phone numbers associated with the voice mail message based on the analysis of the voice mail message; and

generating a macro based on each of the determined phone numbers.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein analyzing the voice mail message by parsing words in the voice mail message comprises detecting a trigger word in the voice mail message, and wherein further determining one or more phone numbers associated with the voice mail message comprises parsing words in the voice mail message after the detected trigger word.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein analyzing the voice mail message by parsing words in the voice mail message comprises analyzing a voice-to-number dictionary associated with the voice mail message, and wherein further determining one or more phone numbers associated with the voice mail message comprises determining one or more phone number associated with the voice mail message based on the associated voice-to-number dictionary.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one detected alias is an individual alias, the individual alias having one associated macro.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one detected alias is a group alias, the group alias having a plurality of associated macros.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein each macro is associated with one or more of an individual alias, multiple individual aliases, a group alias, multiple group aliases, or a combination of individual aliases and group aliases.

11. A machine-accessible medium containing instructions effective, when executing in a data processing system, to cause said data processing system to perform operations comprising:

receiving a verbal request to initiate a conference call;

analyzing the request by parsing words in the request to detect one or more aliases in the request;

accessing one or more macros associated with each of the detected one or more aliases, each macro being adapted to dial a phone number;

initiating a conference call; and

performing a macro action for each of the associated macros to add participants associated with each detected alias to the initiated conference call.

12. The machine-accessible medium of claim 11, further comprising receiving one or more macros.

13. The machine-accessible medium of claim 11, further comprising generating one or more macros.

14. The machine-accessible medium of claim 11, wherein at least one detected alias is an individual alias, the individual alias having one associated macro.

15. The machine-accessible medium of claim 11, wherein at least one detected alias is a group alias, the group alias having a plurality of associated macros.

16. A conference calling module system to establish a conference call, comprising:

an interface to receive a verbal request to initiate a conference call;

a conference call initiation module to initiate a conference call in response to receipt of the request by the interface;

a request parser module in communication with the interface to analyze the request by parsing words in the request to detect one or more aliases; and

a macro handler module in communication with the request parser module to access one or more macros associated with each of the detected aliases and to perform a macro action for each of the associated macros to add participants associated with each detected alias to the initiated conference call.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the interface comprises a user interface to receive a verbal request from a user.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the interface comprises a communication device interface to receive a verbal request from a communication device, and wherein further the conference calling module system is a remote conference calling system executing on a conference calling server.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the macro handler module is further adapted to generate one or more macros based on a voice mail message.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein the detected one or more aliases include one or more of an individual alias or a group alias.