Telephonic communications – Special services – Automatic directory service
Reexamination Certificate
2002-04-11
2004-09-14
Tsang, Fan (Department: 2645)
Telephonic communications
Special services
Automatic directory service
C379S218020, C379S088050, C704S275000, C704S276000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06792096
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The following invention relates to telecommunications systems, and more particularly to automating directory assistance using speech recognition.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
An early step toward automation of directory assistance was the use of store and forward technology to assist live operators. The caller was asked for a locality by a pre-recorded prompt. The store and forward system stored a compressed version of the caller's response to the prompt, and brought a live operator onto the line. The operator heard a compressed version of the response and then completed the remaining dialog with the caller to provide a unique telephone number
More recently another form of automated directory assistance has been developed, which uses automated speech recognition technology to recognize a locality from the caller's response to a prompt. In a typical system, if the speech recognition is successful, the system asks for the listing, puts an operator on the line, populates the operator's workstation display with the recognized locality, and plays a recorded compressed version of the caller's response to the listing question. The operator then conducts the remaining dialog.
Systems have been developed that attempt to carry the speech recognition through the entire dialog of locality, database listing, clarification, and disambiguation. Recognition success rates have increased but are not 100%. The conventional approach to improving the success rate is to “tune” the system by recording callers' responses and using them to expand the speech recognition capability.
The likelihood of failed speech recognition requires that the system be capable of defaulting to an operator. The conventional approach is to automatically hand off the call to a live operator after a failed attempt at speech recognition. This aspect of automation is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,979,206, 5,479,488, and 5,987,414.
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Bushey Robert R.
Chang Hisao M.
Martin John M.
Anwah Olisa
Baker & Botts L.L.P.
SBC Technology Resources Inc.
Tsang Fan
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