Text enhanced telephony
First Claim
1. A text enhanced telephone station for use by a user who can speak but has attenuated hearing, the station capable of carrying both voice and text communications simultaneously over one telephone line, the text communications transmitted using digital communication tones, the station comprising:
- a telephone including a speaker and a microphone;
a filter connected to the telephone to separate the digital communication tones from voice communications, the filter being connected so that the digital communications tones are not passed to the speaker;
a modem connected to the telephone to convert any text communication at the digital communication tones to digital signals;
a microcontroller connected to receive the digital signals from the modem and to identify any characters encoded in the digital signals; and
a visually readable display to display the characters identified by the microcontroller, the microcontroller programmed to display on the display the characters as they are received so that text communications received by the station are displayed to be read by a user;
the station being capable of both transmitting voice signals over the one telephone line simultaneously as it receives and displays text communications over the one telephone line, without the digital communication tones being audible to the user.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system is described for assisting the hard of hearing in the use of the telephone, the system termed here text enhanced telephony or TET. The hard of hearing user uses a TET device or appliance which permits the user to speak and to hear the words spoken by the other party, the TET device also supplying to the user a text character stream of the words spoken by the other party. The TET system uses the system of voice-to-text relays, already in existence to assist the deaf community communicate with hearing persons over the telephone, to translate the spoken voice into a text stream. The TET relay and TET device are capable of separating voice and digital communications frequencies carrying text so that voice and a text communications stream of the words spoken by the voice can be carried over a common telephone line. The devices can also be capable of automated capabilities such that the devices can automatically configure a three-party relay call without the need for the user'"'"'s instructions.
153 Citations
7 Claims
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1. A text enhanced telephone station for use by a user who can speak but has attenuated hearing, the station capable of carrying both voice and text communications simultaneously over one telephone line, the text communications transmitted using digital communication tones, the station comprising:
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a telephone including a speaker and a microphone; a filter connected to the telephone to separate the digital communication tones from voice communications, the filter being connected so that the digital communications tones are not passed to the speaker; a modem connected to the telephone to convert any text communication at the digital communication tones to digital signals; a microcontroller connected to receive the digital signals from the modem and to identify any characters encoded in the digital signals; and a visually readable display to display the characters identified by the microcontroller, the microcontroller programmed to display on the display the characters as they are received so that text communications received by the station are displayed to be read by a user; the station being capable of both transmitting voice signals over the one telephone line simultaneously as it receives and displays text communications over the one telephone line, without the digital communication tones being audible to the user.
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2. A text enhanced telephone communication device adapted to being connected in series between a conventional telephone and a telephone line to permit both voice and text communications to be carried on a common telephone line, the text communications carried at digital communication frequencies, the device comprising:
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a connection to the telephone; a filter connected to receive telephone signals and connected to filter out any digital communications frequencies to prevent passage of text communications to the telephone; a decoding circuit to receive the inbound telephone signals before the filter to decode the text communications from the digital communications frequencies; a visual display; and a microcontroller connected to the decoding circuit programmed to decode text characters in the text communications and to promptly display the characters on the visual display as the characters are received, wherein the device permits both voice and text communications to be carried on the common telephone line with voice passing on the telephone line while the text communications are used to create a visual text character stream for reading.
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3. A text enhanced telephone communication device adapted to being connected in series between a conventional telephone handset and a telephone base unit of a telephone, and adapted to permit both voice and text communications carried at digital communications frequencies to be carried on a common telephone line connected to the telephone, the device comprising:
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a first connector to connect to the telephone handset; a second connector to connect to the telephone base unit, the first and second connectors being connected by inbound and outbound telephone wires; a filter connected in the inbound telephone wire to filter out any digital communications frequencies from transmission to the telephone handset; a decoding circuit also connected to the inbound telephone wire to decode the text communications from the digital communications frequencies; a visual display; a microcontroller connected to the output of the decoding circuit and the visual display and programmed to decode text characters in the text communications and to promptly display text characters on the visual display as text characters are received, wherein the device can receive both voice and simultaneous text communications on the common telephone line with the voice passing to a user while the text communications are used to create a simultaneous visual text character stream.
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4. A text enhanced telephone station for communicating in both voice and text characters over a common telephone line, the text characters being transmitted at discrete digital communication frequencies, the station comprising
a telephone handset including a speaker and a microphone; -
a filter connected to the speaker to prevent passage to the speaker of the digital communication frequencies; a decoding circuit connected to the common telephone line and responsive to signals at the digital communications frequencies received over the common telephone line to convert those signals to digital signals; an analog output circuit connected to the common telephone line to convert digital information into signals at the digital communications frequencies; a visually readable display; and a microprocessor connected to the decoding circuit and the analog output circuit and the display, the microprocessor programmed to display text characters received in digital form from the decoding circuit on the display so that a user can hear a voice and also see the text characters of words that are spoken, the microprocessor also being programmed to, if a user indicates that a text enhanced call is to be originated, to transmit on the common telephone line a series of command codes causing a relay to be connected as well as the called party, so that the relay can supply text characters of words spoken by a called party for display.
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5. A method of text enhancing telephone communications over one telephone line between a telephone user who is hard of hearing or deaf and a relay which includes speech to digital text communications conversion capability comprising the steps of
providing the telephone user with a text enhanced telephone station that can display digital text visually and that can filter digital text communications from spoken voice transmitted over a common telephone line; -
connecting the text enhanced telephone station over the one telephone line with the relay; at the relay, creating a digital communication text transcription of spoken words and transmitting both the digital communication text transcription and the spoken words simultaneously over the single telephone line to the user so that the user will receive both the spoken words and the visual display of the text transcription.
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6. A method for text enhancing communications over a telephone line between a first user and a second user, the method comprising the steps of
connecting by telephone the first user and the second user through a relay having the capability to convert spoken speech to a digital communications text transcription carried on digital communication frequencies; -
at the relay, converting spoken speech of the second user received over the telephone connection into a digital communications text transcription of the spoken speech; and at the relay, transmitting the digital communication frequencies carrying the text transcription over the telephone connection to the first user at the same time that the telephone connection to the first user also is carrying spoken speech.
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7. A method for text enhancing communications over a telephone line between a first user and a second user, the method comprising the steps of
connecting by telephone the first user and the second user through a relay having the capability to convert spoken speech to a digital communications text transcription carried on digital communication frequencies; -
converting spoken speech of the second user into a digital communications text transcription of the spoken speech; and transmitting the digital communication frequencies carrying the text transcription over the telephone connection to the first user at or near the same time that the telephone connection to the first user also is carrying spoken speech of the same text.
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Specification