Telephone system

• US 7,092,494 B1
• Filed: 02/29/2000
• Issued: 08/15/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 01/16/1996
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Global Tel-Link Corporation, Globel Tel*Link Corporation
• Original Assignee: Global Tel-Link Corporation
• Inventors: Chin, Seacol, Salter, Kenneth, Anders, Joseph C., Jones, Mark
• Primary Examiner(s): Tsang, Fan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Anwah, Olisa
• Application Number:
  US09/516,381
• Time in Patent Office: 2,359 Days
• Field of Search: 379/373.04, 379/374.02, 379/375.01, 379/142.01
• US Class Current: 379/68
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/301 Management of recordings
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/382 using authorisation codes or passwords
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42221 Conversation recording systems at the subscriber's set H04M1/656

Abstract

A telephone operating system is described. The invention is a telephone system have unique monitoring methods and equipment to allow the user to following conversations and retrieve portions of the conversation and to take certain actions in connection with conversations.

There may be two groups of users within the system, the first being the maker and recipient of the call and the other being a person or device monitoring the call. The system provides a telephone monitoring device for reading a biological marker for an individual and associating the marker with a pin number and associating the pin number with other call information to be stored with data on the call along with an interface means for storing information on a call from a group of information comprised of the locations from and to which the call is made, the PIN number and name or the maker, time when made and when finished, data of the call, telephone numbers and the like. The system may convert the telephone call to digital format for storage and to maintain a database of data, voices or sounds in a digital format, particularly secondary ring signals, and to compare the digital database of voices or sounds or data (particularly phone numbers, names, addresses and area codes) based on user controlled degrees of similarity and to take different actions from a group of actions including monitoring, marking, terminating or playing a recording before, after or in conjunction with the ongoing call. The invention to feed the data to the comparing mechanism at an accelerated rate, typically 4 to 5 times the speed of the original call, with or without filters for which isolate voice ranges or data ranges, with or without pitch attenuation to keep the voice at an apparently normal pitch.

Claims

1. A method for use with a user interface controlling at least one database in communication with a telephone system for controlling a telephone call between at least two parties including a called party and a calling party said telephone call originating as voice signals, the voice signals having been converted to an electromagnetic signal in a digital format having at least one data pack of telephone call data, the telephone call data comprised of a plurality of digital datum, the digital datum including at least one digital word, the digital word comprised of at least one of the plurality of digital datum, comprising the steps of:

a) generating at least one preselected data from a telephone call specific group consisting of start date, start time, finish time, length of call, location numbers, pin numbers, name of user, usage of user, phone number called, length of the call, call origin, call destination and combinations thereof;

b) converting the at least one preselected data to a digital format;

c) creating a marker means for tracking on at least one database;

d) attaching the marker means to the at least one preselected data;

e) storing the at least one preselected data and marker means in the at least one database;

f) electronically attaching the marker means to the telephone call data;

g) storing the at least one preselected data and marker means in the at least one database;

h) storing in the at least one database a pre-selected option associated with the at least one preselected data, the preselected option selected from an options group consisting of connecting the telephone call, transmitting the electromagnetic signal, terminating the telephone call, stopping the electromagnetic signal, generating a second marker means for marking the location of the telephone call data and storing the at least one preselected data and the marker means in the at least one database, generating a second marking means and storing the at least one preselected data with the marker means in the at least one database, playing a recorded message in conjunction with the telephone call, forwarding the telephone call, sending the telephone call to the user and controlling the telephone call by the user, sending the telephone call to the user and monitoring the telephone call by the user, requesting information from the calling party, requesting information from the called party, responding to information from the calling party, responding to information from the called party, storing the at least one preselected data in the at least one database, storing the at least one electromagnetic signal in the at least one database, determining billing for the call and billing the call, generating a second marker means and storing the beginning time of the telephone call with the second marker marking means in the at least one database, generating a second marker means and storing the ending time of the telephone call with the second marker means, determining the length of the telephone call and storing the length of the telephone call in the at least one database, and combinations thereof;

i) comparing the pre-selected option to the at least one preselected data and associated option from the database; and

determining and storing in the at least one database potential data of interest possible in the at least one preselected data;

j) comparing the at least one preselected data with the potential data; and

k) effectuating the pre-selected option if the at least one preselected data matches the possible data in the database.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of effectuating the pre-selected option further comprises the step of comparing in a central processing unit the potential data with at least one preselected data and controlling the telephone call with the central processing unit using at least one of the options from the options group.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises recording the telephone call data and the at least one telephone call specific preselected data as digital data in the at least one database for later retrieval.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising the steps of

a) inputting a plurality of code words;

b) storing the plurality of code words in the at least one database;

c) converting at least one of the code words into at least one phonic digital data corresponding to at least one pronunciation for the code word in the database;

d) grouping in the at least one database a plurality of datum of the telephone call data into at least one data group comparable to the at least one phonic digital data;

e) comparing the data groups to the at least one phonic digital data;

f) effectuating the at least one associated option where the at least one phonetic digital data group matches the at least one phonetic digital data.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the step of converting at least one of the code words further comprises converting the at least one phonetic digital data into at least one digital word and determining the range of timing and frequency for the at least one digital word, setting a preselected percentage of certainty, and determining similarity on the basis of the pre-selected percentage of certainty by comparing timing and frequency between the phonetic digital data and the at least one digital word.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the steps of comparing and effectuating the pre-selected option is done at a remote location for at least one option from the group of options.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein the telephone call specific data comprises a PIN number of the origin user.

24. The method of claim 23, comprising the step of obtaining the PIN number from a biological person specific marker for the calling party.

7. A method for use with a user interface (GUI) controlling at least one database in communication with a telephone system for controlling a telephone call between at least two parties including a called party and a calling party originating as voice signals, the voice signals having been converted to an electromagnetic signal in a digital format having at least one data pack of telephone call data, the telephone call data comprised of a plurality of digital datum, the digital datum including at least one digital word, the digital word comprised of a portion of the digital datum, comprising the steps of:

a) selecting appropriate code words of interest to the user;

b) converting at least one of the code words into phonic digital data corresponding to at least one pronunciation for the code word;

c) grouping a plurality of datum of the telephone call data into at least one data group comparable to the phonic digital data;

d) storing in the at least one database a pre-selected group of options consisting of connecting the telephone call, transmitting the electromagnetic signal, terminating the telephone call, terminating the electromagnetic signal, generating a marker means for marking the location of the telephone call data and storing at least one call preselected data with the marker means for later generating the marker means for later retrieval from the database, generating a marker means and storing at least one preselected data with the marker means, playing a recorded message in conjunction with the telephone call, forwarding the telephone call, sending the telephone call to the user and controlling the telephone call by the user, sending the telephone call to the user and monitoring the telephone call by the user, requesting information from the calling party, requesting information from the called party, storing at least one preselected data in the at least one data base, storing the electromagnetic signal in the at least one database, determining billing for the telephone call and billing the telephone call, generating a marker means and storing the beginning time of the telephone call with the marker means, generating a marker means and storing the ending time of the telephone call with the marker means, determining the length of the telephone call and storing the length of the telephone call in the at least one database, and combinations thereof;

e) comparing the at least one data group to the phonic digital data; and

f) effectuating an option from the pre-selected group of options if the at least one data group matches the phonetic digital data.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of converting further comprises storing pre-selected voice digital data corresponding to specific code words that have been converted to digital data and determining the range of timing and frequency for the digital data.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the step of comparing the at least one data group to the phonic digital data further comprises the steps of entering a plurality of code words;

storing in the database at least one phonetic pronunciation associated with each of the plurality of code words; and

comparing the at least one phonetic pronunciation to the phonetic digital data.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of storing the at least one phonetic pronunciation further comprises the step of storing a plurality of pronunciations.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of comparing comprises the steps of:

(a) preselecting a percentage of certainty; and

(b) comparing the timing and frequency for the digital data based on the percentage of certainty between the data groups and phonetic digital data.

12. The method of claim 7, further comprising the step of retrieving telephone call data from the at least one database by the user and reviewing telephone call data by the user.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of reviewing telephone call data further comprises the step of converting the telephone call data to a printable format and displaying the phonetic digital data matching at least one code word in the printable format.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of retrieving telephone call data further comprises the steps of recording telephone call data as a series of digital data in a string having at least one length, selecting at least one code word, marking electronically the location of at least one digital word corresponding to at least one code word within the series of digital data, selecting at least one second length of the string which is less than the at least one length including the at least one digital word, recovering the at least one second length and displaying the at least one second length.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the step of selecting at least one second length further comprising the step of requesting a user defined length for the at least one second length from the user.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the at least second length includes at least one word before the at least one digital word.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the at least second length includes at least one word after the at least one digital word.

18. The method of claim 7, further comprising encoding the data so that it cannot be altered without modification of the data.

19. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of effectuating an option further comprises automatically effectuating an option.

20. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of effectuating an option further comprises notifying the user at the GUI and effectuating an option at the election of the user at the GUI.

21. The method of claim 7, wherein the steps of comparing an option and effectuating an option are done at a remote location for at least one option from the group of options.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the steps of comparing an option and effectuating an option are done at the phone location for at least one option from the group of options.