Device independent text captioned telephone service

• US 7,881,441 B2
• Filed: 03/28/2006
• Issued: 02/01/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ultratech Incorporated (Veeco Instruments Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Ultratech Incorporated (Veeco Instruments Incorporated)
• Inventors: Vitek, Troy D., Colwell, Kevin R., Gritner, Kurt M., Engelke, Robert M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Woo; Stella L
• Application Number:
  US11/391,141
• Publication Number:
  US 20070036282A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,771 Days
• Field of Search: 379/52, 379/93.15, 379/93.07, 370/352
• US Class Current: 379/52
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition speech recognition per se G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/60 Medium conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42391 where the subscribers are hearing-impaired persons, e.g. telephone devices for the deaf

Abstract

Text captioned telephony, in which a telephone conversation is accompanied by text captions to aid in hard-of-hearing users, is implemented without the use of specialized text captioned telephone terminals by using a combination of an Internet appliance such as a computer and a telephone or by generalized voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) telephones.

Claims

1. A method of providing captions to telephone callers using a combination of a telephone terminal and an Internet appliance comprising the steps of:

(a) communicating, over a telephone network, a voice portion of a telephone call between a first caller and a second caller operating telephone terminals communicating with the telephone network;

(b) the first caller actuating the Internet appliance to communicate over the Internet with a relay, thereby establishing a connection between the Internet appliance and the relay over the Internet;

(c) routing the voice portion to a voice recognition engine at the relay, the voice recognition engine transcribing the voice portion to corresponding text;

(d) communicating the text over the Internet; and

(e) displaying the text on the Internet appliance to at least one of the first and second callers.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the telephone network includes a PBX network.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the relay receives the voice portion of the telephone call from the telephone network.

4. The method of claim 3 including the step of the first caller dialing the relay on the telephone network to provide the relay with a telephone number of the second caller, and the step of the relay calling the second caller to complete the telephone call.

5. The method of claim 1 including the step of the first caller contacting the relay to provide the relay with a telephone number of the first caller and a telephone number of the second caller, and the step of the relay calling the first and second caller to complete the call.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the relay receives the voice portion of the telephone call from the Internet in voice over Internet protocol.

7. The method of claim 6 including the step of tapping into a handset of one telephone terminal to communicate the voice portion of the telephone call to the Internet appliance for communication of the voice portion to the relay over the Internet.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the Internet appliance further transmits a video signal of the first caller over the Internet.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the telephone network is selected from the group consisting of a telephone land line, a cellular telephone link, and a voice over Internet protocol (IP) connection.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the telephone network receives a standard telephone number to connect the first and second caller.

11. A telephone call captioning system comprising:

a first and second telephone terminal communicating over a telephone network to convey a voice portion of a telephone call between a first caller and a second caller operating the telephone terminals;

a relay receiving the voice portion and providing a computer executed speech recognition engine transcribing the voice portion to corresponding text; and

an Internet appliance actuated by one of the first and second callers to communicate over the Internet with the relay to establish a connection between the Internet appliance and the relay over the Internet, and communicating over the Internet to display the text to at least one of the first and second callers.

12. The captioning system of claim 11 wherein the telephone network includes a PBX network.

13. The captioning system of claim 11 wherein the relay communicates with the telephone network to receive the voice portion of the telephone call from the telephone network.

14. The captioning system of claim 13 wherein the relay operates to receive a telephone number of the second caller from the first caller dialing the relay on the telephone network, and calling the second caller to complete the telephone call.

15. The captioning system of claim 11 wherein the relay receives the voice portion of the telephone call from the Internet in voice over Internet protocol.

16. The captioning system of claim 15 further including a tap connecting a handset of one telephone terminal to the Internet appliance to communicate the voice portion of the telephone call to the Internet appliance for communication of the voice portion to the relay over the Internet.

17. The captioning system of claim 11 wherein the Internet appliance further includes a camera transmitting a video signal of one of the first and second callers to the relay over the Internet.

18. The captioning system of claim 17 wherein the text is provided as a signal selected from the group consisting of:

a video signal and a text signal.

19. The captioning system of claim 11 wherein the telephone network is selected from the group consisting of a telephone land line, a cellular telephone link, and a voice over Internet protocol (IP) connection.

20. The captioning system of claim 11 wherein the telephone network receives a standard telephone number to connect the first and second caller.

21. A relay for telephone call captioning comprising:

a first connection for receiving at least a voice portion of a telephone call between a first caller and a second caller operating telephone terminals communicating with a telephone network;

a computer executed speech recognition engine operating to transcribe at least a portion of the voice portion of the telephone call to text; and

a second connection conveying the text over the Internet to an Internet appliance viewable by one of the first and second callers, wherein the second connection is established over the Internet by one of the first and second callers actuating the Internet appliance to communicate over the Internet with the relay to establish the second connection between the Internet appliance and the relay.

22. The relay of claim 21 wherein at least one of the telephone terminals and Internet appliance are provided by a single cellular telephone.

23. A captioning method providing captions to callers communicating over the Internet comprising the steps of:

communicating a voice portion of a telephone call between a first caller and a second caller, at least the first caller operating an Internet telephone using a voice over Internet protocol;

actuating the Internet telephone to communicate over the Internet with a relay to establish a connection between the Internet telephone and the relay over the Internet;

communicating a text captioning of the telephone call between the first caller and the second caller to the Internet telephone communicating over the Internet with the relay, the relay providing a speech recognition engine transcribing the voice portion to text captioning.

24. The method of claim 23 wherein the Internet telephone is a computer communicating with the Internet.

25. The method of claim 23 wherein the Internet telephone is a dedicated VOIP telephone, and the text captioning is displayed on a VOIP telephone display.

26. The method of claim 23 including the step of accepting an input from the first caller to initiate communicating the text captioning of the telephone call between the first caller and the second caller.

27. The method of claim 23 wherein the caller initiates the text captioning by activating a control button.

28. The method of claim 23 including the step of displaying a volume of the telephone call to at least one of the first and second callers.

29. The method of claim 23 wherein the Internet telephone further includes a serial number, and including the step of transmitting the serial number to the relay to validate the first caller.

30. The method of claim 23 wherein the Internet telephone further includes a telephone network connection, and including the step of communicating the voice portion of the telephone call between the first caller and the second caller over the telephone network connection when a telephone number of the second caller is a public emergency number.

31. The method of claim 23 wherein the Internet telephone further transmits a video signal of the first caller to the relay over the Internet.

32. The method of claim 23 wherein the text captioning is received as an IP video signal.

33. The method of claim 23 wherein the voice portion is only one of the first caller and the second caller to preserve anonymity of the other of the first caller and the second caller.

34. A captioning system providing captions to callers communicating over the Internet comprising:

at least one Internet telephone communicating a voice portion of a telephone call between a first caller and a second caller using a voice over Internet protocol;

a relay providing a speech recognition engine and operating to communicate a text captioning of the telephone call to the at least one Internet telephone communicating over the Internet with a relay;

wherein the Internet telephone is actuated by one of the callers to communicate over the Internet with the relay to establish a connection between the Internet telephone and the relay over the Internet.

35. The captioning system of claim 34 wherein the Internet telephone is a computer communicating with the Internet.

36. The captioning system of claim 34 wherein the Internet telephone is a dedicated VOIP telephone and the text captioning is displayed on a VOIP telephone display.

37. The captioning system of claim 34 wherein the Internet telephone provides a caller control accepting an input from the first caller to initiate communicating the text captioning of the telephone call between the first caller and the second caller.

38. The captioning system of claim 37 wherein the caller control is a control button.

39. The captioning system of claim 34 wherein the Internet telephone provides a display displaying a volume of the telephone call.

40. The captioning system of claim 34 wherein the Internet telephone further includes a serial number, and wherein the Internet telephone transmits the serial number to the relay to validate at least one of the first caller and the second caller.

41. The captioning system of claim 34 wherein the at least one Internet telephone further includes a telephone network connection, and the at least one Internet telephone operates to communicate the voice portion of the telephone call between the first caller and the second caller over the telephone network connection when a telephone number of the second caller is a public emergency number.

42. The captioning system of claim 34 wherein the Internet telephone further transmits a video signal of the first caller to the relay over the Internet.