Short voice message (SVM) service method, apparatus and system

• US 20050286689A1
• Filed: 07/29/2005
• Published: 12/29/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 04/05/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Corporation
• Original Assignee: Nokia Corporation
• Inventors: Vuori, Petri
• Granted Patent: US 7,197,122 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/88.22
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72433 for voice messaging, e.g. dictaphones for answering incoming calls H04M1/64
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/4527 Voicemail attached to other kind of message
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/74 with voice recognition means voice activated dialling H04M1/271; voice recognition algorithms G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42382 Text-based messaging services in telephone networks such as PSTN/ISDN, e.g. User-to-User Signalling or Short Message Service for fixed networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/533 Voice mail systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/537 Arrangements for indicating the presence of a recorded message , whereby the presence information might include a preview or summary of the message
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/12 Messaging; Mailboxes; Announcements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/184 Messaging devices, e.g. message centre
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 92/02 Inter-networking arrangements

Abstract

Tiresome entry of numerous letters of the alphabet into a hand-held device for assembling a short text message for transmission via a short message service (SMS) to a second terminal is avoided by the sending of a short voice message (SVM). The SVM is recorded in the sending terminal and sent to a SVM service center (SVMSC). The SVMSC may notify the intended recipient of the arrival of the SVM and await acceptance before sending it, or send it immediately if the presence of the intended recipient is detected. The second terminal may then commence a bidirectional communication so that an instant voice message session can be established. Alternatively, the problem can be overcome by converting the spoken SVM to text in the user terminal by means of voice recognition software and sending the converted text to the recipient by means of the traditional SMS infrastructure for display as text or for playback as text converted to voice.

Claims

1. Method for use in a network element of a telecommunications network for providing messages between terminals used by users, comprising the steps of:

receiving in said network element a short voice message transmitted from a first terminal for forwarding to a second user at a second terminal, said short voice message spoken by a first user at said first terminal, and

checking availability of said second terminal or user thereof using a presence service, and

sending from said network element the short voice message to the second terminal if available.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of the network element storing the short voice message until the step of checking availability determines the second terminal or user thereof is available.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said checking availability is a checking of a status marker of a presence tuple among a plurality of presence tuples of presence information maintained by a presence service.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said immediately sending the received short voice message is carried out by a service sending the received short voice message to an inbox having an inbox address associated with said presence tuple.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of the network element notifying the second user at the second terminal of the completed short voice message prior to said step of sending.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said step of sending the received short voice message to the second terminal is carried out only after the second user signals acceptance.

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

the network element receiving a short voice message from the second terminal spoken by the second user, and

the network element sending the received short voice message to the first terminal.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising the step of checking the availability of said first terminal using said presence service before carrying out said step of sending the short voice message spoken by the second user at the second terminal to the first terminal.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of storing the received short voice message in the second terminal for playback by the second user at the convenience of the second user.

10. Apparatus for use in a network element of a telecommunications network for providing messages between terminals used by users, comprising:

means in said network element for receiving a short voice message from a first terminal spoken by a first user at a first terminal and sent to said network element by the first user for a second user at a second terminal;

means in said network element for checking availability of said second terminal using a presence service; and

means in said network element for sending the received short voice message to the second terminal if available.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, further comprising means for storing the short voice message until the means for checking availability determines the second user is available.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, further comprising means for notifying the second user at the second terminal of the received short voice message from the first user prior to the received short voice message transmission to the second terminal.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the received short voice message is sent to the second terminal only after the second user signals acceptance.

14. The apparatus of claim 10, further comprising:

means for receiving a short voice message from the second terminal spoken by the second user in reply to the short voice message from the first user; and

means for sending the short voice message received from the second user to the first terminal.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, further comprising means for checking the availability of the first terminal before sending the short voice message received from the second terminal to the first terminal.

16. The apparatus of claim 10, further comprising means for storing the short voice message received in the second terminal for playback to the second user at the convenience of the second user.

17. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said means for checking availability is carried out by a presence service checking a status marker of a presence tuple among a plurality of presence tuples of presence information maintained by a presence service.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein said means for of immediately sending is carried out by a service sending the received short voice message to an inbox having an inbox address associated with said presence tuple.

19. The apparatus of claim 10, comprising an instant messaging service, wherein said presence service is responsive to presence information, for providing status information;

and wherein said means for receiving a voice message and said means for sending the received voice message together comprise

a short voice message service, responsive to a short voice message provided by a short voice message sending principal, for providing said short voice message to a receiving principal if said status information indicates availability for acceptance of said short voice message.

20. A short voice message system including a plurality of terminals and a voice message service center, said service center comprising:

means for receiving a short voice message from a first user terminal used by a first subscriber to a presence service;

means for storing the received short voice message from the first terminal;

means for checking availability of an intended second user subscriber to said presence service at a second terminal; and

means for sending the stored short voice message received from the first terminal to the second terminal if the second user subscriber at the second terminal is available.

21. The short voice message system of claim 20, wherein said means for checking availability is carried out by a presence service checking a status marker of a presence tuple among a plurality of presence tuples of presence information maintained by a presence service.

22. The short voice message system of claim 21, wherein said means for of immediately sending is carried out by a service sending the received voice message to an inbox having an inbox address associated with said presence tuple.

23. The short voice message system of claim 20, said service center further comprising means for notifying the second terminal of the short voice message received from the first terminal wherein the received short voice message from the first terminal is sent to the second terminal upon receiving an acceptance signal from the second terminal in response to the notification.

24. The short voice message system of claim 20, wherein one or more of said plurality of terminals comprises:

means for receiving said short voice message at said first user terminal spoken by a first user for providing said short voice message from said first user terminal to said means for receiving said short voice message at said service center;

means for storing short voice messages including said short voice message spoken by said first user;

means for retrieving the stored short voice message; and

means for sending the short voice message retrieved from storage to the second user of the short voice message system as an outgoing short voice message.

25. The short voice message system of claim 24, wherein said one or more of said plurality of terminals further comprises:

means for receiving an incoming short voice message from the second user for storage in the means for storing short voice messages; and

means for playback of the incoming short voice message to the first user after retrieval from the means for storing short voice messages by the means for retrieving stored short voice messages.

26. The short voice message system of claim 25, wherein said one or more of said plurality of terminals further comprises:

means for receiving notification of the incoming short voice message from the second user for display or notification thereof to the first user; and

means responsive to an acceptance indication input signal from the first user for sending the acceptance indication input signal for use in the short voice message system in deciding whether to send the incoming short voice message from the second user to the first user.

27. The short voice message system of claim 24, wherein the means for receiving the short voice message spoken by the first user includes short voice recognition means for recognizing the short voice message spoken by the first user for providing the short voice message as a text message for storage in and retrieval from the means for storing short voice messages as a text message for transmission as an outgoing text message via a short message service center.

28. The short voice message system of claim 27, wherein the means for receiving an incoming short voice message from the second user includes means for receiving an incoming text message for storage as a text message and wherein the means for playback of the incoming text message is for displaying the incoming text message on a display of the user equipment.

29. The short voice message system of claim 27, wherein the means for receiving an incoming short voice message from the second user is means for receiving an incoming text message for storage as a text message and wherein the means for retrieving the stored text message is for converting the retrieved text message to a short voice signal for playback on a means for playback as an enunciated short voice message.

30. The short voice message system of claim 20, wherein each terminal comprises means for transmitting presence information to the voice message service center and means for receiving presence information from the voice message service center, and the voice message service center comprises means for maintaining presence information wherein said presence information includes presence tuples, each tuple comprising a status marker and a communication address identifying at least one of a short voice message service and a short voice message inbox address, and in that

said short voice message service center is responsive to an instant short voice message from a sending principal addressed to a short voice message inbox, for checking said status marker of said short voice message inbox and for delivering said instant short voice message if said status marker indicates availability for receipt thereof.

31. User equipment for use in a voice message system, comprising:

voice recognition means for receiving a short voice message spoken by a first user and for converting the short voice message to a short text message;

memory means for storing said short text message; and

means for retrieving the short text message from storage and for sending the short text message as an outgoing short message to a short message service center for transfer to second user.

32. The user equipment of claim 31, further comprising:

means for receiving an incoming short text message from the second user in reply for storage in the memory means; and

means for display of the incoming short text message to the first user after retrieval from the storage means.

33. The user equipment of claim 32, further comprising:

means for receiving notification of the incoming short text message from the second user; and

means responsive to an acceptance indication input signal from the first user for sending the acceptance indication input signal for use in the short message system in deciding whether to send the incoming short text message from the second user to the user equipment of the first user.

34. The user equipment of claim 31, further comprising:

means for receiving a designation signal from the first user designating a second user subscriber to said presence service as an intended recipient; and

means for retrieving the stored short voice message in response to the designation signal for providing the short voice message retrieved from the storage and the designation signal.

35. The user equipment of claim 31, further comprising:

means for checking availability of said second user using a presence service.

36. The user equipment of claim 32, further comprising means for converting said text message from said second user to speech for playback to said first user.

37. The user equipment of claim 31, wherein said means for sending comprises an short voice message sender user agent.

38. The user equipment of claim 32, wherein said means for receiving an incoming short voice message is a short voice message inbox user agent.

39. The user equipment of claim 31, for accessing said instant messaging service for receiving instant messages from senders of instant messages and for providing instant messages to inboxes, said service associated with a presence service for receiving presence information about presentities and for providing said presence information to watchers, said user equipment comprising:

a short voice message watcher user agent for receiving presence information about a short voice message presentity; and

a short voice message sender user agent for providing a short voice message to a short voice message server for delivery if said presence information indicates availability.

40. The user equipment of claim 39, further comprising:

a short voice message presence user agent for interacting with said short voice message presentity; and

a short voice message inbox user agent for interacting with a short voice message inbox.

41. A data structure embodied in a computer-readable medium for storage in a physical device, characterized in that

the data structure is a short voice message presence information database for storing short voice message presence tuples, each tuple having a status marker indicative of availability for receipt of short voice messages, and a communication address indicative of at least one of a short voice message service and a short voice message inbox address.

42. A voice message system including a plurality of terminals and a voice message service center, said service center comprising:

means for receiving a voice message from a first user terminal;

means for storing the received voice message from the first terminal;

a presence service for checking availability of an intended second user at a second terminal; and

means for sending the stored received message from the first terminal to the second terminal if the second terminal is available, wherein one or more of said plurality of terminals comprises;

means for receiving said voice message at said first user terminal spoken by a first user for providing said voice message from said first user terminal to said means for receiving said voice message at said service center;

means for storing voice messages including said voice message spoken by said first user;

means for receiving a designation signal from said first user designating a second user as an intended recipient;

means for retrieving the stored voice message in response to the designation signal for providing the voice message retrieved from storage and the designation signal; and

means for sending the voice message retrieved from storage and the designation signal to the second user of the voice message system as an outgoing voice message.