Method and apparatus for secure electronic business card exchange

• US 20090088215A1
• Filed: 09/27/2007
• Published: 04/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/27/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RingCentral Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Unify GmbH & Co. KG (Atos SE)
• Inventors: Beyda, William J., Caspi, Rami
• Granted Patent: US 9,031,614 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/563
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/32 using biometric data, e.g. fingerprints, iris scans or voiceprints
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/00 Speaker identification or verification techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/271 controlled by voice recognition

Abstract

An electronic business card is provided with voice data associated with the card owner. In some embodiments, the voice data is a digitized voice sample; in other embodiments, the voice data is a selection of pre-processed voice recognition data associated with a voice sample. In some implementations, the electronic business card can be transferred to other parties using a Bluetooth personal network. A user application can then make use of the voice sample or pre-processed voice recognition data for security or user identification

Claims

1. A method comprising:

including voice data in an electronic business card;

transmitting said electronic business card from one electronic communications device to another;

saving transmitted voice data in association with an address book entry; and

using said saved voice data to verify an identity of party.

2. A method in accordance with claim 1, said voice data comprising digitized voice samples.

3. A method in accordance with claim 1 said voice data comprising preprocessed voice recognition samples.

4. A method in accordance with claim 1, said including voice data including providing said voice data on a physical business card and reading said voice data into an address book device.

5. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein said electronic business card comprises a vCard.

6. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein said transmitting includes transmitting using a Bluetooth protocol.

7. A telecommunications device, comprising:

a transceiver;

an address book control unit operably coupled to the transceiver and configured to receive electronic business card data and store said data in an electronic address book;

wherein the electronic business card data includes integrated voice data.

8. A telecommunications device in accordance with claim 7, wherein the integrated voice data includes one or more digitized voice samples.

9. A telecommunications device in accordance with claim 7, wherein the integrated voice data includes preprocessed voice recognition data.

10. A telecommunications device in accordance with claim 7, further including a verification unit configured to identify a caller from an incoming call and from the integrated voice data.

11. A telecommunications device, comprising:

a memory;

an address book control unit configured to store electronic business card data from one or more electronic business cards as one or more address entries in said memory; and

an input control unit configured to receive said electronic business card data, said electronic business card data including voice data.

12. A telecommunications device in accordance with claim 11, wherein said input control unit is operably coupled to receive said electronic business card data from an external device via a wireless interface.

13. A telecommunications device in accordance with claim 12, wherein said wireless interface is a Bluetooth interface.

14. A telecommunications device in accordance with claim 12, wherein said input control unit is operably coupled to receive said electronic business card data from an external device via a wired interface.

15. A telecommunications device in accordance with claim 11, wherein said input control unit includes a business card reader for reading voice data integrated with a physical business card.

16. A telecommunications device in accordance with claim 11, wherein said input control unit interfaces to a business card reader for reading voice data integrated with a physical business card.

17. A telecommunications device in accordance with claim 11, further including a verification unit configured to identify a caller from an incoming call and from the voice data.

18. A telecommunications system, comprising:

a first user device including an address book control unit configured to receive electronic business card data from other devices and store said data in an electronic address book;

wherein the electronic business card data includes integrated voice data; and

a second user device configured to provide said electronic business card data to the first user device.

19. A telecommunications system in accordance with claim 18, wherein said first user device and said second user device comprise cellular telephones.

20. A telecommunications system in accordance with claim 18, wherein said first user device comprises a cellular telephone or a computer and said second user device comprises a business card reader.

21. A telecommunications system in accordance with claim 18, wherein the integrated voice data includes one or more digital voice samples.

22. A telecommunications system in accordance with claim 18, wherein the integrated voice data includes preprocessed voice recognition data.