SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR NEAR REAL-TIME IDENTIFICATION AND DEFINITION QUERY

• US 20120089395A1
• Filed: 10/07/2010
• Published: 04/12/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/07/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Arlington Technologies, LLC (Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Avaya Incorporated
• Inventors: Chavez, David L., Hardouin, Larry J.
• Granted Patent: US 9,852,732 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/235
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3322 using system suggestions G06F16/3325 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/242 Dictionaries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/247 Thesauruses; Synonyms
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence

Abstract

A method of operating a communication system includes generating a transcript of at least a portion of a conversation between a plurality of users. The transcript includes a plurality of subsets of characters. The method further includes displaying the transcript on a plurality of communication devices, identifying an occurrence of at least one selected subset of characters from the plurality of subsets of characters, and querying a definition source for at least one definition for the selected subset of characters. The definition for the selected subset of characters is displayed on the plurality of communication devices.

Claims

1. A method of operating a communication system, comprising:

generating a transcript of at least a portion of a conversation between a plurality of users, the transcript including a plurality of subsets of characters;

displaying the transcript on a plurality of communication devices;

identifying an occurrence of at least one selected subset of characters from the plurality of subsets of characters;

querying a definition source for at least one definition for the selected subset of characters; and

displaying the definition for the selected subset of characters on the plurality of communication devices.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising converting audio signals associated with the conversation into the transcript of the conversation, determining a context of the conversation, and selecting the definition source from a plurality of definition sources based on the context.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying adjacent subsets of characters occurring in proximity with the selected subset of characters and querying the definition source for occurrences of the adjacent subsets of characters associated with the at least one definition for the selected subset of characters.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising identifying a plurality of definitions for the selected subset of characters, identifying frequencies of the occurrences of the adjacent subsets of characters within the plurality of definitions for the selected subsets of characters, and providing a list of definitions ordered according to the frequencies of the occurrences of the adjacent subsets of characters in the definitions.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the at least one selected subset of characters includes receiving user input to identify the at least one selected subset of characters.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the at least one selected subset of characters includes comparing the plurality of subsets of characters in the conversation to the definition source to identify subsets of characters not defined in the definition source.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising querying a database external to the definition source for definitions of the subsets of characters not defined in the definition source.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising adding to the definition source definitions returned by querying the database external to the definition source.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the conversation occurs within a social network.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the occurrence of the selected subset of characters includes identifying an acronym.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the definition source includes at least one of an electronic dictionary, an electronic lexicon, a local document depository system, a centralized document depository system, an internet search, or a viral discovery search of products.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the occurrence of at least one selected subset of characters from the plurality of subsets of characters and querying the definition source for at least one definition for the selected subset of characters occurs prior to the step of displaying the definition for the selected subset of characters on the plurality of communication devices.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining if the selected subset of characters has been identified by more than one user, and responsive to determining that the selected subset of characters has been identified by more than one user, sending a notification to a user who originated the selected subset of characters.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein sending the notification to the user who originated the selected subset of characters includes sending the notification through non-disruptive means.

15. A communication system, comprising:

a server configured to generate a transcript of at least a portion of a conversation between a plurality of users over a network, the transcript including a plurality of subsets of characters; and

a plurality of communication devices configured to receive the transcript from the server and to display the transcript, wherein at least one of the communication devices is configured to receive input to identify an occurrence of at least one selected subset of characters from the plurality of subsets of characters;

wherein the server is further configured to query a definition source for at least one definition for the selected subset of characters; and

wherein the plurality of communication devices are configured to display the definition for the selected subset of characters.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the definition source includes an internal definition source associated with the server.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the server is further configured to query an external definition source for the definition for the selected subset of characters.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the server queries the definition source for the at least one definition for the selected subset of characters prior to the communication devices displaying the definition for the selected subset of characters on the plurality of communication devices.

19. A computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon, that when executed perform a method, the method comprising the steps of:

generating a transcript of at least a portion of a conversation between a plurality of users, the transcript including a plurality of subsets of characters;

displaying the transcript on a plurality of communication devices;

identifying an occurrence of at least one selected subset of characters from the plurality of subsets of characters;

querying a definition source for at least one definition for the selected subset of characters; and

displaying the definition for the selected subset of characters on the plurality of communication devices.

20. The computer readable medium of claim of claim 19, wherein a server generates the transcript of the at least a portion of the conversation, determines a context of the conversation, selects the definition source from a plurality of definition sources based on the context, and queries the definition source for the at least one definition for the selected subset of characters.