Telephonic communications – Audio message storage – retrieval – or synthesis – Voice activation or recognition
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-31
2004-11-02
Tsang, Fan (Department: 2645)
Telephonic communications
Audio message storage, retrieval, or synthesis
Voice activation or recognition
C340S572100, C704S246000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06813341
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to voice activated/voice responsive item locators, i.e. item directories which direct a user such as a consumer or shopper, to a specific location to view, treat, retrieve, order, purchase or otherwise use the information obtained in the system. Typically, the present invention could be used at retail stores to locate items to be purchased. Alternatively, it could be used at a production facility or distribution facility having a large number of parts, to locate specific parts for an employee. In other embodiments, it could be used in non-commercial entities, such as a public library to locate a particular book. The locator of the present invention relies upon a specific software module to accomplish voice recognition and response, and includes manager programming for customization, updates and modifications.
2. Information Disclosure Statement
The following prior art patents represent various inventions relating to machines involving speech recognition for voice-based operation and thus illustrate known voice recognition applications:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,111,501 to Masanobu Shimanuki describes a telephone terminal device equipped with a transmitter microphone, a receiver, a speech recognition unit that receives and recognizes speech signals from the transmitter microphone and a circuit to reduce the level of signals send from a telephone network to the receiver when the speech recognition unit receives speech signals from the transmitter microphone. Further, this device is preferably equipped with a speech reproduction unit that reproduces the speech information stored in a memory, in response to the information of recognition result from the speech recognition unit, and a circuit that prevents transmission of signals from the telephone network to the receiver when the regenerated speech information is sent to the receiver. Furthermore, it is desirable for this device to be provided with a circuit that prevents generation of ringing tones when an incoming call arrives.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,136,634 to David C. Rae et al. describes voice operated facsimile machine network which includes a method and apparatus for transmitting specifically requested graphic and/or textual data from an unattended database storage location to a requestor's facsimile machine over a telephone line which includes a host computer such as a PC modified with a facsimile transmission board and a voice generation board. The host computer receives incoming phone calls and prompts the caller using the voice board to select data files by using the DTMF keys of a standard telephone handset. The PC can be left unattended and can run automatically in the facsimile transmission mode. Callers can immediately access needed textual and image data with the use of just a standard telephone and facsimile machine. Multiple workstation nodes can be configured in a network setup to handle a high volume of calls in real time and to allow multiple data services to operate simultaneously.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,165,095 to Mark A. Borcherding describes a method for dialing a telephone, using voice recognition to initiate the dialing and to determine the correct telephone number. The dialing is initiated with a spoken dial command that is recognized by using speaker independent templates that are stored locally with respect to the caller's telephone. The correct telephone number is recognized by using speaker dependent template that are downloaded from a central database or by using speaker independent templates stored locally.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,168,548 to Steven Kaufman et al. describes a reporting system which is disclosed herein, a speech recognizer which is used to select selections of text from a report form stored in a computer and to insert recognized terms in the text thereby to generate a report text under voice control. A command interpreter, also responsive to spoken words, initiates creation of the report text and its subsequent storing, printing and transmission. The command processor is responsive to respective spoken commands to select a destination telephone number and to cause the report text to be sent to apparatus for converting report text to image data and for modulating an audio band signal with the image data for facsimile transmission over telephone lines.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,222,121 to Keiko Shimada describes a voice recognition dialing unit of a telephone mounted on a vehicle or similar mobile body and which allows a call to be originated with ease. When the user of the telephone enters a voice command on voice inputting section, the dialing unit originates a call automatically and thereby connects the other party to the telephone line. In a call origination procedure, the operations for call origination and the verifications are performed between the user and the unit in an interactive sequence. In a preferred embodiment, the unit has a particular call origination procedure in which, when the other party recognized by the unit is wrong as determined by the user by verification, lower place candidates for the other party are called up in response to a particular voice command. In an alternative embodiment, the unit indicates the other party by voicing a name for verification purpose. The alternative embodiment selects and stores only the name of the other party in response to an entered voice signal and, in the event of response for verification, combines the name having been stored and response information stored beforehand to produce composite response voice.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,231,670 to Richard S. Goldhor et al. describes a system and method for generating text from a voice input that divides the processing of each speech event into a dictation event and a text event. Each dictation event handles the processing of data relating to the input into the system, and each text event deals with the generation of text from the inputted voice signals. In order to easily distinguish the dictation events from each other and text events from each other the system and method creates a data structure for storing certain information relating to each individual event. Such data structures enable the system and method to process both simple spoken words as well as spoken commands and to provide the necessary text generation in response to the spoken words or to execute an appropriate function in response to a command. Speech recognition includes the ability to distinguish between dictation text and commands.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,239,586 to Kuniyoshi Marui describes a voice recognition system which comprises a handset and a hands-free microphone for generating an input audio signal, a high-pass filter for eliminating low frequency components from the signal from the handset or hands-free microphone, a signal lever controller for adjusting the level of the high-pass signal in response to the user of either the handset or hands-free microphone, a storer for storing the speech data and a controller for controlling the storer so that a user's utterance is stored or the user's utterance is recognized by comparing the utterance to speech data already stored. The handset hook switch provides an on-hook control signal to reduce amplifier gain during hands-free microphone operation.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,227 to Shoichi Kamei et al. describes an automatic dial telephone that is useable in a motor vehicle, when a voice input is provided during a period in which input of the names of called parties is awaited, a voice pattern of the name of the called party is compared with reference patterns of called parties stored in reference patterns storing device, to determine the degree of the similarity therebetween. The names of the called parties are output to a user in the order of decreasing degree of similarity. Each time the name of a called party is output, a command word for confirmation is a waited from a user for a predetermined time period. When a voice confirmation command is input and is recognized during this waiting period, a telephone number corr
Chow Ming
Glynn Kenneth P.
iVoice, Inc.
Tsang Fan
LandOfFree
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