System and method for providing network coordinated conversational services

• US 7,519,536 B2
• Filed: 12/16/2005
• Issued: 04/14/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/02/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Maes, Stephane H., Gopalakrishnan, Ponani
• Primary Examiner(s): Hudspeth, David R
• Assistant Examiner(s): Sked, Matthew J
• Application Number:
  US11/303,768
• Publication Number:
  US 20060111909A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,215 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 704/270.1
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/00 Speech or voice signal processing techniques to produce another audible or non-audible signal, e.g. visual or tactile, in order to modify its quality or its intelligibility G10L19/00 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/00 Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/401 wherein the services involve a main real-time session and one or more additional parallel real-time or time sensitive sessions, e.g. white board sharing or spawning of a subconference

Abstract

A system and method for providing automatic and coordinated sharing of conversational resources, e.g., functions and arguments, between network-connected servers and devices and their corresponding applications. In one aspect, a system for providing automatic and coordinated sharing of conversational resources includes a network having a first and second network device, the first and second network device each comprising a set of conversational resources, a dialog manager for managing a conversation and executing calls requesting a conversational service, and a communication stack for communicating messages over the network using conversational protocols, wherein the conversational protocols establish coordinated network communication between the dialog managers of the first and second network device to automatically share the set of conversational resources of the first and second network device, when necessary, to perform their respective requested conversational service.

Claims

1. A system for providing automatic and coordinated sharing of conversational resources, comprising:

a first and a second network device, wherein the first and second network device each comprise;

a set of conversational resources;

a dialog manager for managing a conversation and executing calls requesting a conversational service, wherein the dialog manager determines whether a conversational service is to be processed and executed locally on a local network device or remotely on a remote network-connected device, wherein this determination is made by determining at least the amount of available resources on the local network device; and

a communication stack comprising;

conversational protocols for communicating messages over the network, wherein the messages communicated using the conversational protocols establish coordinated network communication between the dialog managers of the first and second network device to automatically share the set of conversational resources of the first and second network device, when necessary, to perform their respective requested conversational service; and

speech transmission protocols for transmitting one of compressed speech waveforms, compressed speech features, and compressed results between the first and second devices.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the set of conversational resources of the first and second device comprises at least one a speech recognition engine, a speaker recognition engine, a TTS (text-to-speech synthesis) engine, a NLU (natural language understanding engine, a NLG (natural language generation) engine, an audio capture and compression/decompression engine, a topic recognition engine, an audio/multimedia indexing and searching engine, and a combination thereof.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the conversational protocols comprise coordination protocols that allow the dialog managers of the first and second device to exchange information comprising their respective conversational state, arguments and context and exchange dialog components.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the coordination protocols coordinate one of a master/slave and peer-to-peer network communication between the dialog managers of the first and second device.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the conversational protocols comprise discovery protocols that allow the first and second device to discover conversationally aware devices and applications on the network.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the discovery protocols implement a “

broadcast and listen”

methodology.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the discovery protocols are implemented for establishing a dynamic and spontaneous network between at least the first and second network device.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the conversational protocols comprise registration protocols for exchanging information regarding conversational resources, capabilities and requirements.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the conversational protocols comprise negotiation protocols for exchanging information to establish a network configuration between the first and second network device based on their respective conversational resources and capabilities.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the network configuration comprises one of a master/slave network, wherein the dialog manager of one of the first and second device controls the conversational resources of both the first and second device and a peer-to-peer network, wherein the dialog managers of the first and second devices negotiate for control conversational resources.

11. A system for providing automatic and coordinated sharing of conversational resources, comprising:

a client comprising local conversational resources and a dialog manager for managing the local conversational resources, processing a request for a conversational service, and determining if a request for a conversational service can be performed using the local conversational resources; and

a server comprising server conversational resources, wherein the dialog manager of the client will automatically access the server for processing the request using the server conversational resources if it determines that the requested conversational service cannot be performed using the local conversational resources, wherein the determination made by the dialog manager is made by determining at least the amount of available resources on the client.

12. A method for providing automatic and coordinated sharing of conversational resources between network devices, comprising the steps of:

receiving a request for a conversational service by a first network device;

determining by the first network device whether to process the requested conversational service one of locally using conversational resources of the first network device, remotely using conversational resources of at least a second network device or locally and remotely using both the local and remote conversational resources, wherein the determination is made by determining an amount of resources available locally; and

automatically communicating with the at least second network device, if it is determined that the conversational service will be processed, at least in part, remotely using the conversational resources of the at least second network device.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising the step of transmitting messages using conversational protocols to establish coordinated network communication between the first and at least second network device for sharing the conversational resources.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the step of automatically accessing comprises the steps of:

automatically establishing a network connection with the at least second network device by transmitting messages using the conversational protocols; and

transmitting one of compressed speech features and a compressed waveform to the at least second network device.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising the steps of:

executing the requested conversational service using the local conversational resources, if it is determined that local conversational resources are available for processing the requested conversational service;

determining if results of the local processing is acceptable; and

automatically accessing the at least second network device to remotely process the requested conversational service, if it is determined that the results of the local processing are not acceptable.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of determining comprises the step of determining if the at least second network device is pre-designated by the first network device to process the conversational service.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of determining is based on one of network connection availability and network traffic between the first network device and the at least second network device.