System and method for accessing voice mail from a remote server

• US 6,704,394 B1
• Filed: 03/25/1998
• Issued: 03/09/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 03/25/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kambhatla, Nandakishore, Zadrozny, Wlodek Wlodzimierz, Touma, Maroun, Wolf, Catherine Gody
• Primary Examiner(s): Hoosain, Allan
• Application Number:
  US09/047,722
• Time in Patent Office: 2,176 Days
• Field of Search: 379/67.1, 379/74, 379/80, 379/88.01, 379/88.02, 379/88.03, 379/88.04, 379/88.13, 379/88.17, 379/88.22, 379/93.09, 379/93.24, 379/93.25, 379/93.34, 379/93.35, 379/100.08, 379/100.15, 379/100.16, 379/68, 379/88.05, 379/88.06, 379/88.07, 379/88.16
• US Class Current: 379/67.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/2016 Call initiation by network rather than by subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/253 where a visual mode is used instead of a voice mode
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/4509 Unified messaging with single point of access to voicemail and other mail or messaging systems unified messaging in packet switching networks H04L51/56
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/533 Voice mail systems

Abstract

The invention is directed towards an automated system for extracting voice messages from a voice mail system and for providing unified access to voice mail and electronic mail or voice mail and the internet. For a given user, a voice mail remote access server connects to the user'"'"'s voice mail system through a telephone or data network, and uses speech recognition and understanding to navigate through the prompts of the voice mail system and extract the user'"'"'s voice mail. Depending upon the access mechanism preferred by the user, the voice messages are sent as e-mail messages with attachments (audio files) to the user or made accessible to the user'"'"'s world wide web server or displayed to the user using a stand-alone voice mail player application.

Claims

1. A computer system having one or more central processing units and one or more memories, comprising;

one or more data network interfaces capable of two way communications with one or more data networks, where each of the data network interfaces is capable of receiving one or more voice control packets, each voice control packet having one or more voice control commands and zero or more input voice messages, each of the data network interfaces further capable of sending one or more voice data packets, each voice data packet having zero or more output voice messages and zero or more voice message headers associated with the respective output voice messages;

one or more voice messaging interfaces capable of two way communications over one or more network connections to one or more voice mail systems, each of the voice messaging interfaces capable of receiving one or more audio packets from said one or more voice mail systems, each of the audio packets having zero or more input audio messages and at least one audio header, each of the network connections further capable of sending one or more signal packets, each of the signal packets having one or more audio control signals and zero or more output audio message, said at least one audio header containing at least one voice prompt played by said one or more voice mail systems; and

a session manager process, executed by one or more of the central processing units, convening one or more of the audio packets into one of the voice data packets and sending the voice data packet through the data network interface to one or more of the data networks, and the session manager process further converting one or more of the voice control packets into one or more signal packets and sending the signal packets through the voice messaging interface to one or more of the networks, said session manager process employing continuous speech recognition and natural language understanding technologies to parse said audio header, extract said at least one voice prompt played by said one or more voice mail systems, and generate control command signals for navigating the at least one voice prompt.

2. A computer system, as in claim 1, where one or more of the voice messaging interface connects to one of the following networks:

a telephony network, a digital network connected to a telephony server, a digital IP network connected to a telephony server, a dedicated RS-232 connection to a telephony server, a synchronous or asynchronous data communication network connected to a telephony server.

3. A computer system, as in claim 1, where the audio packet has one or more input voice messages that are telephone voice messages and further has one or more audio headers that are telephone message system prompts.

4. A computer system, as in claim 1, where the audio packet has one or more input voice messages that are voice recording files and further has one or more audio headers that are file descriptors.

5. A computer system, as in claim 4, where one or more of the audio headers contains structural information about the voice recording files.

6. A computer system, as in claim 1, where one or more of the output voice messages is one of the following:

a text e-mail message, an audio attachment to an e-mail message, a pager message and a compressed audio stream.

7. A computer system, as in claim 1, where one or more of the voice message header is one of the following:

an email header, a message time stamp, a message caller-id, message order in the queue, a message delivery status, a selection list and a compressed audio stream.

8. A computer system, as in claim 1, where the voice control commands of one or more of the voice control packets ate any one of the following:

a user command or selection, a user profile and a voice mail system command.

9. A computer system, as in claim 1, where the input voice message of one or more of the voice control packets is any one of the following:

a digitized voice message recording and a text message.

10. A computer system, as in claim 1, where the signal packet is in any one of the following formats:

a DTMF signal, an audio recording, a telephony server file management command, and a voice mail system command.

11. A computer system, as in claim 1, where the session manager uses a message parsing logic to recognize a prompt string in one or more of the audio headers, produces zero or more voice message headers based on the prompt string, and converting the audio message into an output voice message based on the prompt string.

12. A computer system, as in claim 11, where the prompt string is a numeric value representing a number of audio messages, the voice message header produced is a playback of the audio headers and the output voice messages is a playback of the respective audio messages.

13. A computer system, as in claim 11, where the prompt string is a time stamp representing a received time of the input audio messages, the voice message header produced is a header field that is attached to the output voice message.

14. A computer system, as in claim 11, where the prompt string is a telephone number, an extension or a person'"'"'s name representing the caller id, the voice message header produced is a header field that is attached to the output voice message.

15. A computer system its in claim 1, wherein said session manager processes a plurality of said voice prompts played by said one or more voice mail systems to extract a voice message from said one or more voice mail systems.

16. A computer system as in claim 1, wherein a synchronous connection allows a user to listen to said voice message in real-time.

17. A computer system as in claim 1, wherein an asynchronous connection allow a user to receive said voice messages as an e-mail attachment.

23. The computer system of claim 1, wherein said control command signals are DTMF signals.

18. A session manager process, executed by one or more central processing units, comprising the steps of:

converting one or more audio packets into one or more voice data packets and sending the voice data packets through a data network interface to one or more data networks, said audio packets having at least one audio header, said at least one audio header containing at least one voice prompt played by one or more voice mail systems, and wherein said session manager process employs continuous speech recognition and natural language understanding technologies to parse said audio header, extract at least one voice prompt played by said one or more voice mail systems, and generate control command signals for navigating the at least one voice prompt; and

converting one or more voice control packets into one or more signal packets and sending the signal packets through a voice messaging interface to one or more networks.

19. A computer system comprising:

means for converting one or more audio packets into one or more voice data packets and sending the voice data packets through a data network interface to one or more data networks, said audio packets having at least one audio header, said at least one audio header containing at least one voice prompt played by one or more voice mail systems, and wherein said computer system further comprises means for employing continuous speech recognition and natural language understanding technologies to parse said audio header, extract at least one voice prompt played by said one or more voice mail systems, and generate control command signals for navigating the at least one voice prompt; and

means for converting one or more of the voice control packets into one or more signal packets and sending the signal packets through a voice messaging interface to one or more networks.

20. A method of accessing voice mail from a remote voice mail system for delivery to a terminal connected to a data network, comprising the steps of:

establishing a connection to said remote voice mail system;

receiving at least one voice prompt played by said remote voice mail system;

employing continuous speech recognition and natural language understanding technologies to parse said at least one voice prompt played by said remote voice mail system;

sending a control command to said remote voice mail system in response to said at least one voice prompt to navigate said at least one voice prompt; and

receiving a voice mail message from said remote voice mail system converting the voice mail message into voice data communications;

delivering the voice data communications to the terminal through the data network.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein said connection is over a data network.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein said connection is over a telephone network.