Voice directed system and method configured for assured messaging to multiple recipients

• US 8,233,924 B2
• Filed: 08/05/2011
• Issued: 07/31/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/14/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vocollect, Inc. (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Vocollect, Inc. (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Inventors: Sweeney, Lawrence R., Maloy, James D., Astorri, Claudine, Boyle, Linda
• Primary Examiner(s): LE, NHAN T
• Application Number:
  US13/198,843
• Publication Number:
  US 20110287751A1
• Time in Patent Office: 361 Days
• Field of Search: 455/412.1, 455/412.2, 455/422.1, 455/462, 455/463, 455/466, 455/550.1, 455/556.1, 455/569.1
• US Class Current: 455/466
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1868 Measures taken after transmission, e.g. acknowledgments
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/189 in combination with wireless systems selective distribution or broadcast in wireless communication networks H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/06 Selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS]; Services to user groups; One-way selective calling services

Abstract

A communications system transmits messages via a wireless network to multiple users nearly simultaneously in real-time. Each user has a terminal that receives a message and plays the message for the user. The terminal may also wait for the user to verbally acknowledge the arrival of the message before continuing with its normally executing application. The sender of the message may track, for each intended recipient, the delivery of the message, the accessing of the message by the user, and the acknowledgement by the user that the message was understood.

Claims

1. A method for sending a message to more than one recipient, the method comprising the steps of:

with a device with at least one processor, receiving a textual message to be forwarded;

transmitting the textual message over a wireless network to a plurality of wireless terminal devices;

receiving from one or more terminal devices of the plurality of wireless terminal devices a respective first acknowledgement message indicating that the message was successfully received by the one or more terminal devices;

receiving from at least one terminal device of the one or more wireless terminal devices a respective second acknowledgement message indicating that an operator associated with the at least one terminal device handled the message; and

maintaining a respective record for at least one of the plurality of wireless terminal devices, the record being indicative of any respective first and second acknowledgement messages received from the at least one of the wireless terminal devices.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of receiving, from a subset of the plurality of wireless terminal devices, a respective third acknowledgement message indicating that the operator of that terminal device understood the message.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the respective first and second acknowledgment messages includes a respective first and second timestamp.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of determining, from the respective records, which of the plurality of terminal devices have not provided the respective second acknowledgement message.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of identifying each of the plurality of wireless terminal devices to receive the textual message.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

receiving the textual message at a terminal device;

converting the textual message to an audio output format;

playing the audio output for an operator through the use of the terminal device.

7. The method of claim 6 further including converting the textual message to an audio format includes using a text-to-speech functionality in the terminal device.

8. The method of claim 1 further including receiving a reply from an operator in the form of speech indicating how the operator handled the message, and performing speech recognition on the reply using the terminal device for generating the second acknowledgement.

9. A method for delivering a message, comprising the steps of:

transmitting a message to a plurality of wireless terminal devices associated with a set of recipients using a wireless communications network;

receiving a first respective acknowledgement, from one or more terminal devices associated with the set of recipients, that the message was successfully received by the recipients associated with the one or more terminal devices;

receiving a second respective acknowledgement, from at least one terminal device of the one or more terminal devices associated with the set of recipients, that the message was handled by the recipient associated with the at least one terminal device; and

maintaining a respective record for at least one terminal device associated with the set of recipients, indicative of the second respective acknowledgement.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising the steps of:

receiving the message as textual input at a terminal device;

converting the message to an audio output format;

playing the audio output for a recipient through the use of at least one terminal device.

11. The method of claim 10 further including converting the textual input to an audio format includes using a text-to-speech functionality in the terminal device.

12. The method of claim 9 further including receiving a reply from a recipient in the form of speech indicating how the recipient handled the message, and performing speech recognition on the reply using the terminal device for generating the second acknowledgement.

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of receiving a third respective acknowledgement, from at least some of the terminal devices associated with the set of recipients, that the message was understood.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the respective record for each of the set of recipients includes an indication of receipt of at least one of the first and third respective acknowledgements.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of identifying which of the set of recipients have not successfully received the message.

16. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of identifying which of the set of recipients have not acknowledged handling the message.

17. The method of claim 9, wherein the respective record includes a timestamp of when the second respective acknowledgement is received.

18. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of graphically displaying the respective record for each of the set of recipients.

19. The method of claim 9 wherein the message is associated with one of an event reminder or an emergency message for the terminal device recipient.

20. The method of claim 9 further comprising running an application and interrupting the application when a message is received by a terminal device.

21. The method of claim 20 further comprising resuming the application upon receipt by the server of the second acknowledgement.