Automatic audience survey system
First Claim
1. A telephone based single phone number accessed automatic audience survey system for obtaining information representative of the opinion of an audience regarding a question of interest from a plurality of individuals of said audience, comprising in combination:
- a first means for holding a plurality of phone lines in an off-hook condition in response to individuals of said audience calling said single phone number;
a second means operatively connected to said plurality of phone lines in said off-hook condition for providing a voice-message to each of said plurality of phone lines simultaneously which asks each such individual for a response in one of at least two selectable categories in regard to said question of interest;
a third means operatively connected to said phone lines in said off-hook condition for storing data in preselected data latches that respectively correspond to said selectable categories in accordance with the particular responses of the individuals; and
a fourth means connected to said preselected data latches for tabulating said data representative of the particular responses of the individuals of said audience to provide composite data representative of the opinion of said audience.
3 Assignments
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Accused Products
Abstract
A telephone based automatic audience survey system for polling an audience to obtain data representative of the opinion regarding a question of interest is disclosed having a first means responsive to incoming calls for answering the calls with an analog voice signal that both identifies the telephone based automatic audience survey system and queries a response in regard to the question of interest, and a second means connected to the first means and responsive to the answers provided to the query portions of the analog voice signal for providing data representative of the consensus regarding the question of interest. Third means connected to the second means are operative to display the data in real-time. The third means includes a video character generator, an audio signal generator, and an operator display.
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Citations
34 Claims
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1. A telephone based single phone number accessed automatic audience survey system for obtaining information representative of the opinion of an audience regarding a question of interest from a plurality of individuals of said audience, comprising in combination:
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a first means for holding a plurality of phone lines in an off-hook condition in response to individuals of said audience calling said single phone number; a second means operatively connected to said plurality of phone lines in said off-hook condition for providing a voice-message to each of said plurality of phone lines simultaneously which asks each such individual for a response in one of at least two selectable categories in regard to said question of interest; a third means operatively connected to said phone lines in said off-hook condition for storing data in preselected data latches that respectively correspond to said selectable categories in accordance with the particular responses of the individuals; and a fourth means connected to said preselected data latches for tabulating said data representative of the particular responses of the individuals of said audience to provide composite data representative of the opinion of said audience. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. An automatic telephone polling system connected to a single phone number accessible rotary-type telephone exchange which provides audience opinion information in regard to a matter of interest, comprising:
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a system microprocessor; a voice synthesis subsystem connected to said system microprocessor for providing an analog voice signal having a common portion with synthesises a message including an operator selectable query portion which queries audience opinion on the matter of interest in at least two audience selectable response categories; a plurality of telephone line interface control subsystems each responsive to calls received from said rotary-type exchange and connected to said system microprocessor and operative to detect incoming calls from said rotary-type telephone exchange, to hold said detected calls in an off-hook condition, to apply said analog synthesized voice signal from said voice synthesis subsystem to said detected calls in the off-hook condition simultaneously, and to provide data respectively representative of corresponding ones of said selectable categories in response to the corresponding oral responses to said query portions of said voice synthesized message provided by individuals of said audience; and means connected to said system microprocessor and responsive to said data for displaying in real-time composite data representative of the audience opinion. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A telephone based automatic audience survey system for polling an audience to obtain data over a predetermined plurality of data collection intervals representative of the opinion regarding a question of interest, each of said data collection intervals including a data collection window, a vote enable window, and a vote tabulate window, comprising:
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a processor; first means connected to said processor and responsive to incoming calls during successive ones of said data collection windows of said data collection intervals for holding said calls in an off-hook condition; second means connected to said first means and said processor and responsive to said calls in an off-hook condition during successive ones of said vote enable windows of said data collection intervals for answering said calls with an analog voice signal that includes an automatic audience survey system query portion that asks for an oral response in one of at least two audience-selectable answer categories in regard to the question of interest; third means connected to said first means, said second means, and said processor and responsive to the oral responses provided to said query portions of said analog voice signal during successive ones of said vote enable windows of said data collection intervals for providing data in data latches respectively representative of the corresponding one of said audience-selectable answer categories regarding the question of interest; and fourth means connected to said third means and said processor and responsive to said data during successive ones of said vote tabulate windows of said data collection intervals for providing in real-time composite information respresentative of the opinion. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27)
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28. A telephone-based automatic audience survey system, comprising:
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first means for holding in an off-hook condition a plurality of telephone lines that ring in response to calling a single preassigned telephone number; second means connected to said first means for simultaneously providing a voice message over each of said off-hook lines which asks for a response to a preselected question; third means connected to said first means and said second means and responsive to the oral responses to said preselected question for providing data representative of said oral responses in respective preselected categories; and fourth means connected to said first means, said second means, and said third means for providing data representative of the responses in real-time. - View Dependent Claims (29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34)
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Specification