System and methods for automatic call and data transfer processing

• US 6,327,343 B1
• Filed: 01/16/1998
• Issued: 12/04/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 01/16/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Maes, Stephan Herman, Kanevsky, Dimitri, Epstein, Mark Edward
• Primary Examiner(s): WEAVER, SCOTT LOUIS
• Application Number:
  US09/008,124
• Time in Patent Office: 1,418 Days
• Field of Search: 379/88.01, 379/88.02, 379/88.03, 379/88.04, 379/88.05, 379/88.06, 379/88.13, 379/88.19, 379/88.2, 379/88.21, 379/88.22, 379/90.01, 704/270
• US Class Current: 379/88.01
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/663 Preventing unauthorised calls to a telephone set
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/436 Arrangements for screening incoming calls , i.e. evaluating the characteristics of a call before deciding whether to answer it based on the calling party profile H04M3/42059; based on location H04M3/42348; based on presence H04M3/42365; diversion H04M3/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/527 Centralised call answering arrangements not requiring operator intervention
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5307 for recording messages comprising any combination of audio and non-audio components

Abstract

A programmable automatic call and data transfer processing system which automatically processes incoming telephone calls, facsimiles and e-mails based on the identity of the caller or author, the subject matter of the message or request, and/or the time of day, which includes: a central server for automatically answering an incoming call and collecting voice data of a caller; a speaker recognition module connected to the server for identifying the caller or author; a switching module responsive to the speaker recognition module for processing the call or message in accordance with a pre-programmed procedure based on the identification of the caller or author; and a programming interface for programming the server, speaker recognizer module and the switching module. The system is programmed by the user to so as to process incoming telephone calls or e-mail and facsimile messages based on the identity of the caller or author, subject matter and content of the message and the time of day. Such processing includes, but is not limited to, switching the call to another system, forwarding the call to another telephone terminal, placing the call on hold, or disconnecting the call. In another aspect of the present invention, the system may be employed to process information retrieved from other telecommunication devices such as voice mail, facsimile/modem or e-mail. The system is capable of tagging the identity of a caller or participants to a teleconference, and transcribing the teleconferences, phone conversations and messages of such callers and participants. The system can automatically index or prioritize the received calls, messages, e-mails and facsimiles according to the caller identification or subject matter of the conversation or message, and allow the user to retrieve messages that either originated from a specific source or caller or retrieve calls which deal with similar or specific subject matter.

Claims

1. An automatic call and data transfer processing system, comprising:

server means for receiving an incoming call;

speaker recognition means, operatively coupled to said server means, for identifying a caller of said call;

speech recognition means, operatively coupled to said server means, for determining subject matter and content of said call;

switching means, responsive to said speaker recognition means and speech recognition means, for processing said call in accordance with said identification of said caller and determined subject matter; and

programming means, operatively coupled to said server means, said speaker recognition means, said speech recognition means and said switching means for allowing a user to program said system.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the server means includes means for recording said incoming call.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein said server means further includes means for compressing and storing said recorded data and means for decompressing said compressed data.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein said server means further receives, and is responsive to, one of an incoming facsimile message, e-mail message, voice data, data convertible to text and a combination thereof.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein said speaker recognition means is based on text-independent speaker recognition.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein said speech recognition means utilizes speech recognition and natural language understanding to determine said subject matter and content of said call.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising language identification means, operatively coupled to said speech recognition means, for identifying and understanding languages of said incoming call.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein said identification means performs language translation.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein identity of said caller is determined from said identified language of said call.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein said language identification means uses identity of said caller to identify language of said call.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising enrollment means for enrolling a new user to have access to said system.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein said enrollment means comprises self-enrollment means.

13. The system of claim 1, further comprising means for determining a time of said call and wherein said system may be further programmed to process said call in accordance with said time of said call.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein said programming means includes one of a GUI interface, a voice interface, a programming configuration file, and a combination thereof.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein said programming may be performed one of locally, remotely and a combination thereof.

16. The system of claim 1, further comprising means, responsive to said incoming call, for dynamically creating an address book.

17. The system of claim 16, further comprising means for accessing said address book to send a message to a selected person.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein said processing of said call includes transferring an incoming telephone call to a plurality of different telephone numbers one of sequentially and simultaneously.

19. The system of claim 1, further comprising means for prompting the caller to identify him/herself and the subject matter of said call.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein said prompting is performed when said system cannot determine either said identity or said subject matter of call.

21. The system of claim 19, wherein said prompting is performed when said call is received to determine said identity of said caller and subject matter of said call.

22. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

identification tagging means, responsive to said speaker recognition means, for automatically tagging said identity of said caller;

transcribing means, responsive to said speech recognition means, for transcribing a telephone conversation or message of said caller; and

audio indexing means, operatively coupled to said identification tagging means and said transcribing means, for indexing said message and said conversation of said caller according to subject matter of said conversation and said message and the identity of said caller.

23. The system of claim 22 further comprising means for retrieving said indexed messages from said audio indexing means.

24. The system of claim 22, further comprising speech synthesizer means, operatively coupled to said server means, said speech recognition means and said audio indexing means, for converting information stored in said audio indexing means into synthesized speech.

25. The system of claim 22, further comprising means, operatively connected to said transcribing means, for dictating messages from a user of said system and sending said message to a selected person.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein said message may be sent by one of a facsimile, e-mail or telephone call, and a combination thereof, to said selected person.

27. The system of claim 26, further comprising means for adding mood stamps or urgency/confidentiality stamps in a header in one of said facsimile and e-mail.

28. A method for providing automatic call or message data processing, comprising the steps of:

receiving an incoming call;

determining the identity of said caller;

determining the subject matter of said call;

processing said call in accordance with one of said identity of said caller and subject matter of said call; and

recording said incoming call, wherein the step of recording is performed prior to said step of determining identity of said caller.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein said step of determining said identity of said caller is performed by text-independent speaker recognition.

30. The method of claim 28, wherein said step of determining said subject matter of said call is performed by speech recognition and natural language understanding.

31. The method of claim 28, further comprising the step of translating said call into a language other than that of said call.

32. The method of claim 28, further comprising the steps of:

determining a time of said call; and

processing said call based on said determined time of said call.

33. The method of claim 28, wherein the method steps are tangibly embodied as program instructions on a program storage device, wherein the program instructions are readable and executable by a machine to perform the method steps.

34. A method for providing automatic call or message data processing, comprising the steps of:

receiving one of an incoming call and message data;

identifying a caller of said call if an incoming call is received and determining subject matter of said call;

identifying an author of said message if message data is received and determining subject matter of said message;

processing one of said call and message in accordance with one of said identity of said caller and author and said subject matter of said call and message.

35. The method of claim 34, further comprising the steps of:

tagging said determined identity of one of said caller and said author;

transcribing said determined subject matter of one of said call and said message;

indexing the information resulting from said tagging and said transcribing in accordance with one of said determined subject matter, said determined identity and a combination thereof.

36. The method of claim 35, further comprising the step of retrieving said indexed information.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein the step of retrieving said indexed information is performed by voice commands.

38. The method of claim 36, wherein the step of retrieving includes converting said indexed information into synthesized speech.

39. The method of claim 34, further comprising the steps:

determining the time of one of said call and message; and

processing one of said call and message in accordance with said determined time.

40. The method of claim 34, wherein the method steps are tangibly embodied as program instructions on a program storage device, wherein the program instructions are readable and executable by a machine to perform the method steps.