CONFERENCE CALL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

• US 20100061539A1
• Filed: 11/15/2009
• Published: 03/11/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Interactions, LLC
• Original Assignee: Interactions Corporation (Interactions, LLC)
• Inventors: Cloran, Michael Eric, Goetz, Jeromey Russell, Heitzman, David Paul, Shields, Mitchell Gregory, Kolb, Jason Aaron, Lamm, Theron Justin
• Granted Patent: US 8,223,944 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/202.10
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

Systems and methods are described for improving connection to and management of conference calls. An inference/rules engine and human backed speech interpretation subsystem enable the system to efficiently use knowledge about the call to identify the caller and determine to which conference he or she should be connected. During the conference, a virtual assistant is available to interpret and execute system commands spoken by a caller, such as in a side conference accessed via DTMF tones.

Claims

1. A system, comprising a processor and a memory in communication with the processor, the memory storing programming instructions executable by the processor to:

play spoken input from a conference call participant in a manner perceivable by a first intent analyst;

accept input from the first intent analyst that indicates the first intent analyst'"'"'s interpretation of a system request in the spoken input;

providing feedback concerning receipt of the system request to the participant; and

automatically executing the system request responsively to the accepting function.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the system request is in the set of requests consisting of:

muting a line of the conference call;

beginning to transcribe the speech in the conference call;

suspending transcription of the speech in the conference call;

listing the participants in the conference call; and

initiating an outgoing call to attempt to join another person to the conference call.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the audio is selectively captured for use in the playing operation only after DTMF tones are received on the caller'"'"'s line.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the programming instructions are further executable by the processor to:

substantially simultaneously with the playing to the first intent analyst, play the spoken input in a manner perceivable by a second intent analyst;

accept input from the second intent analyst that indicates the second intent analyst'"'"'s interpretation of the system request;

the executing operation is a function of the input accepted from both the first and the second intent analysts.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the programming instructions are further executable by the processor, if the first intent analyst'"'"'s interpretation and the second intent analyst'"'"'s interpretation are different, to:

play the spoken input in a manner perceivable by a third intent analyst,

accept input from the third intent analyst that indicates the second intent analyst'"'"'s interpretation of the system request; and

use the input from the third intent analyst as a tiebreaker between the input from the first intent analyst and the second intent analyst.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the feedback concerning receipt of the system request is audio feedback.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the feedback is prerecorded audio.

8. A system, comprising a processor and a memory in communication with the processor, the memory storing programming instructions executable by the processor to:

gather enough information to

identify a caller, and

identify a conference, from among multiple conferences, that the caller wants to join,

where the gathering of enough information to identify the caller includes

automatically narrowing a universe of caller identities to a subset of caller identities as a function of data about the audio connection with the caller,

further narrowing the subset to a single caller identity by automatically playing a recorded question to, and collecting an answer from, the caller; and

automatically place the caller into the identified conference.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the further narrowing comprises using a rules engine to apply a collection of logical rules to the known facts about the call, including requesting additional information from the caller.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the requesting of additional information comprises:

prompting the caller using prerecorded audio;

playing spoken input from a conference call participant in a manner perceivable by an intent analyst; and

accepting input from the intent analyst that indicates the intent analyst'"'"'s interpretation of the spoken input;

where the intent analyst'"'"'s interpretation is taken as the caller'"'"'s answer to the prompt.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the programming instructions are further executable by the processor to display a menu of selections for the analyst during the playing, where the menu is composed based on the additional information being requested.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the caller initiated a connection with the system by telephone.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the system initiated a connection with the caller.