Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer conferencing – Demand based messaging
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-15
2001-06-19
Wiley, David A. (Department: 2155)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer conferencing
Demand based messaging
C709S203000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06249808
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to the delivery of messages to a wireless communication device. More particularly, the present invention relates to the delivery of messages to a wireless communication device using a combination of text and voice.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Electronic messaging (e.g. email) is becoming an increasingly popular way for people to communicate with each other. Typically, a message sender uses a computer connected to a network and sends a message to the recipient using a computer connected to the same or another network. The email message traverses the network(s) and is received at the recipients computer. One problem with this type of delivery method is that the message recipient may receive an email message while he/she is away from a computer and is thus unable to retrieve the email message.
One solution to this problem is to allow users to retrieve email messages using a convention telephone. In this solution, a message recipient uses a conventional telephone to call a message retrieval platform which is connected to the user's email server where the user's email messages are stored. The message retrieval platform converts the email messages into voice and delivers the voice to the user via the telephone connection. See co-pending, commonly assigned U.S. patent applications Ser. No. 08/816,608 to Henderson et al., filed on Mar. 13, 1997, and Ser. No. 09/167,114 to Kocheisen et al., filed on Oct. 6, 1998. The user retrieving messages in this manner may also control the message retrieval (e.g. repeat message, skip message, delete message, etc.) using the telephone keypad. With the widespread use of wireless telephones, the retrieval of email messages in this manner has become more convenient. However, one problem with this solution is that email messages are created with the expectation that the text of the email message will be read by the recipient. As such, when these messages are converted to speech via a text to speech converter, it is somewhat awkward for the recipient. For example, listening to the email header information may be awkward. In fact, the user may not even want to listen to the particular message. Wireless airtime is expensive and retrieving long messages in this manner can become costly.
Another way to send email messages to a wireless device is to send the actual text message to the device. Many advanced digital wireless telephones now have a textual display area and are capable of receiving short text messages of about 80 characters. One such service is called the Short Message Service, a standard which is a part of virtually every digital cellular service. One shortcoming of the delivery of email in this way is the restriction of the length of the message. Many email messages are longer than 80 characters and as such they cannot be delivered as text to these wireless telephones.
Thus, what is needed is an improved technique for delivering email messages to wireless communication devices, such as wireless telephones.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides an improved technique for delivering email messages to users of wireless devices. In accordance with the invention, a portion of an email message is converted to a voice message, while another portion of the email message remains as a text message. The combination of the voice message and text message is delivered to the user via a wireless communication device.
In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, a network message server receives a text message addressed to a wireless communication device. The message server transmits a first portion of the message to the wireless communication device as a text message. A second portion of the message is converted from text to speech and this second portion of the message is transmitted to the wireless communication device as a voice message. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, a subscriber profile stored in the wireless communication network stores information indicating how text messages received for the subscriber are to be divided into text and voice portions.
The text portion of the message may be sent to the wireless communication device using a data channel, such as a wireless control channel or wireless messaging channel (also referred to in the description below as out-of-band). Alternatively, the text portion of the message may be sent to the wireless communication device using a voice channel (referred to as in-band). If the text is sent using a voice channel, the wireless communication system may reduce the speech coding rate of voice information transmitted to the wireless communication device during the transmission of the text message so as to free up bandwidth for the transmission of the text message using the voice channel. Alternatively, the wireless communication system may send the text message via the voice channel during a time when it detects that no voice information is being sent on the voice channel.
In accordance with another embodiment of the invention, the inventive technique may be performed locally by the wireless communication device. The wireless communication device receives an email message from the wireless communication network in text format and stores the text in its memory. The wireless communication device splits the message into a first text portion and a second voice portion. The splitting can be determined by user preferences stored locally in the memory of the wireless communication device. The splitting can also be determined based on audio keywords or audio email attached by the sender. The first text portion of the message is displayed to the user on the display of the wireless communication device. The wireless communication device locally converts the second voice portion of the message into speech and plays the speech to the user via a speaker.
These and other advantages of the invention will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art by reference to the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5771353 (1998-06-01), Eggleston et al.
patent: 5781857 (1998-07-01), Hwang et al.
patent: 5951638 (1999-09-01), Hoss et al.
patent: 6061718 (2000-05-01), Nelson
patent: 6161007 (2000-12-01), McCutcheon et al.
patent: 6175858 (2001-01-01), Bulfer et al.
patent: 6185535 (2001-02-01), Hedin et al.
patent: 6185603 (2001-02-01), Henderson et al.
AT&T Corp
Wiley David A.
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