Telephonic communications – Audio message storage – retrieval – or synthesis – Voice activation or recognition
Reexamination Certificate
1997-10-02
2001-08-14
Tieu, Binh K. (Department: 2643)
Telephonic communications
Audio message storage, retrieval, or synthesis
Voice activation or recognition
C379S067100, C379S083000, C379S088090, C379S088280
Reexamination Certificate
active
06275569
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the storage of digital voice message data in memory. More particularly, it relates to managed storage of new voice messages over previously stored older voice messages to provide a virtually endless ability to store new voice messages in a digital voice messaging system even after the voice message memory is filled.
2. Background of Related Art
Voice messaging has become an everyday requirement in today's society. Early voice messaging systems comprised magnetic cassette tapes which recorded a significant amount of voice messages, e.g., 60 minutes of voice messages. However, cassette tapes were disadvantageous because of the mechanics and time required to fast-forward and rewind the cassette tapes to the storage points of individual messages. Moreover, cassette tape voice message systems were not best suited in a business environment where multiple persons may utilize a common telephone switching system or voice messaging system.
More recently, particularly as the size of memory has increased in density while at the same time decreased in price, digital voice messaging systems have become commonplace. Voice compression techniques such as linear predictive coding (LPC) or code-excited linear predictive (CELP) coding utilized by some conventional digital voice messaging systems maximized the length of voice messages which could be stored in the finite amount of memory provided in such apparatus.
FIG. 7
shows a prior art digital voice messaging apparatus. A signal from a microphone
806
or other analog signal source is input to a codec
804
for conversion to &mgr;-law or A-law pulse code modulated (PCM) data. The &mgr;-law or A-law PCM data is output to an encoder/decoder functional block
803
including a voice compression encoder
803
a
and voice compression decoder
803
b.
The codec
804
also receives PCM data from the voice compression decoder
803
b
and converts that PCM data into an analog signal for output to and playback by a speaker
808
.
The voice messaging system may be a multiple user system with partitions in voice message memory corresponding to the plurality of users. Moreover, the individual components of the digital voice messaging system may be multiple channel devices capable of handling individual user voice mailboxes.
A processor
802
controls the encoder
803
a
and decoder
803
b.
Processor
802
also controls storage of the compressed (encoded) speech data from the voice compression encoder
803
a
into memory
800
, and controls the retrieval of compressed speech data from memory
800
and output of the same to the voice compression decoder
803
b,
based on user selections at the message controls
810
. Conventional message controls include PLAY, RECORD, FAST FORWARD, and REWIND.
Old messages are deleted from voice mailboxes or personal voice message systems in any of a multitude of ways. For instance, in some systems rewinding to a chronological point before a particular stored voice message effectively deletes all subsequently stored voice messages. However, these deletions must be performed for each message or group of messages stored. The deletion of stored messages is not automatic in conventional systems.
FIG. 8
depicts the utilization of memory
800
after the storage of an example maximum number of voice messages
601
-
605
of given lengths. Initially, no voice messages are stored in memory
800
. Thereafter, a first message
601
is received by the voice messaging system relating to a particular mailbox or phone number, and is stored in memory
800
. The first message
601
uses a small percentage of the full capacity of the memory
800
as depicted with respect to the vertical axis of FIG.
8
. At the time that the first message
601
is stored in memory
800
, most of the memory
800
is available for storage of voice messages.
When a second message
602
is received by the voice messaging system, it is stored in memory
800
in addition to the first message
601
which was previously stored. The third message
603
, the fourth message
604
, and the fifth message
605
are subsequently and similarly stored in memory
800
when received. As depicted in
FIG. 8
, the memory usage is nearly at capacity (i.e., 100%) after storage of the fifth message
605
.
Storage of a sixth message
600
is cut-off because it exceeds the available voice message memory. Thereafter, no new messages can be stored in memory
800
until at least one of the previously-stored older messages
601
-
605
is deleted, freeing up some memory. Even then, if a voice message is longer than the freed-up memory, its storage in memory will be cut-off without the entire voice message being stored.
The maximum number of voice messages which can be stored in memory
800
is a direct function of the efficiency of the encoding and decoding techniques utilized in the encoder/decoder functional block
803
, and the size of the memory
800
. Generally, the larger the memory
800
, and the more efficient the encoding technique, the greater the number of messages that can be stored in the digital voice messaging system.
When the memory
800
becomes nearly filled with messages, no new messages are allowed to be stored until old messages are manually deleted. Conventional digital voice messaging systems will not answer an incoming call if there is no available memory for storing a new message. This ‘lock-out’ feature ensures that old messages will not be deleted without being heard by the user. However, many users of voice messaging machines listen to messages and then do not delete the messages afterwards. This eventually results in an incapacitated voice messaging system which will not store any new voice messages until some amount of memory
800
is freed-up. The conventional way to free-up memory is to delete previously stored, old voice messages.
There is a need for a voice messaging system which, without manually deleting old voice messages, gives the user a balance between the ability to retain older messages and accepting new messages after the memory of the voice messaging system is full.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A voice messaging system is provided which includes a codec, encoder and decoder function, voice message memory and a processor. The processor controls storage of voice messages into the voice message memory. Inventively, the present invention includes a circular message storage selection which, when activated, allows newly-stored voice messages to automatically overwrite previously stored voice messages.
The present invention also provides a method of managing voice messages in a voice mail system. A maximum number of voice messages allowed to be stored in voice message memory is limited for an individual user of the voice mail system. Enablement of a circular message storage allows, when the individual user reaches the maximum, a newly-stored voice message to automatically overwrite a previously-stored voice message in the voice message memory for the individual user of the voice mail system.
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patent: 5153579 (1992-10-01), Fisch et al.
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patent: 5717818 (1998-02-01), Nejime et al.
Bollman William H.
Lucent Technologies - Inc.
Tieu Binh K.
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