Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-17
2001-07-03
Homere, Jean R. (Department: 2177)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C704S239000, C704S240000, C704S251000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06256630
ABSTRACT:
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to {copyright or mask work} protection. The {copyright or mask work} owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all (copyright or mask work) rights whatsoever.
MICROFICHE APPENDIX
This application contains a microfiche appendix consisting of 8 microfiche and 782 frames.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for accessing databases generally and for accessing databases via the telephone, in particular.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Publications describing conventional methods and systems for accessing databases via the telephone and publications on subjects related to these technologies, such as speech recognition publications, include the following:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,608,460 to Carter, entitled “Comprehensive Automatic Directory Assistance Apparatus and Method Thereof;
WO Patent 88/02965 to Daudelin, entitled “Directory Assistance Call Processing and non-Supervisory Signal Monitoring Arrangements”;
U.S. Pat. No. 4,650,927 to James, entitled “Processor Assisted Communication System using Tone-Generating Telephones”;
U.S. Pat. 5,255,310, to Kim, entitled “Method of Approximately Matching an Input Character String with a Key Word and Vocally Outputting Data”;
U.S. Pat. No. 4,674,112 to Kondraske, entitled “Character pattern Recognition and Communications Apparatus”;
U.S. Pat. No. 5,214,689 to O'Sullivan, entitled “Interactive Transit: Information System”;
WO Patent 89/00793 to Padden, entitled “Directory Assistance Systems”;
U.S. Pat. No. 4,979,206 to Padden, entitled “Directory Assistance Systems”;
U.S. Pat. No. 5,131,045 to Roth, entitled “Audio-Augmented Data Keying”;
U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,038 to Shepard, entitled “Apparatus and Method for Obtaining information in a Wide-Area Telephone System with Digital Data Transmission Between a Local Exchange and an Information Storage Site”;
U.S. Pat. No. 3,928,724 to Byram, entitled “Voice-Actuated Telephone Directory--Assistance System”;
Church K. W., Phonological Parsing in Speech Recognition, Kluwer Academic Publ, 1987;
Colangelo R. D., “Directory Assistance for the Visually Impaired”, SouthEastcon 89, Vol 3, pp. 1168-1171, 1989;
Fast L., Ballantine R., “Dialing a Name: Alphabetic Entry Through a Telephone Keypad”, SIGCHI, Vol 20(2) pp. 34, 1988;
Glowacz D., “RBOCs Vocalize Operator Services”, Telephone Engineer & Management, Vol 95(7) pp. 25-30, 1991;
Holmgren J. E., “Toward bell System Applications of Automatic Speech Recognition”, The Bell System Technical Journal, Vol 62(6) pp. 1865-1881, 1983;
Jack M. A.,. “Design and Evaluation of Automated Telephone Services”, IEE Colloquium on Telecommunications, pp. 61-64, 1992;
Klatt D. H., “Review of Text-to-Speech Conversion for English”, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol 82(3) pp. 737-793, 1987;
Lennig M., “Putting Speech Recognition to Work in the Telephone Network”, Computer, Vol 23(8) pp. 35-41, 1990;
Myers C. S., Rabiner L.R., “An Automated Directory Listing Retrieval System based on Recognition of Connected Letter Strings”, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol 71(3), pp. 716-727,. 1982;
Ohyama Minoru, “A Knowledge-Based Directory Assistance System”, Future Generation Computer Systems, Vol 5(1) pp. 109-117, 1989;
Pelto G. E., “Designing the Telephone Interface for Voice Processing Applications”, Speech Technology, Vol 5(1) pp. 18-21, 1989;
Schalk T. B., “Automating Operator-Assisted Calls Using Speech Recognition”, Eurospeech 89, Vol 1 pp. 441-444, 1989;
Veith R. H., “Information Retrieval via Telephone Keypad and Voice: Experiences with Telephone Directories”, National Online Meeting Proceedings, Vol 1 pp. 443-451, 1990;
Veith R. H., “Operator Assisted Services with Automated Responses”,Audiotex, Vol 1 pp. 19-28, 1986;
Rabiner L., Juang B., Fundamentals of Speech Recognition, Prentice-Hall, 1993, pp. 43-52;
Hall, P. A. “Approximate string matching”, Computing surveys, Vol. 12(4), pp. 381-402, 1980;
Salomaa, A., “Computation and Automatation”, Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 44-55;
Tremblay, J. P.; Sorenson, P. G., “An introduction to data structures with applications”, McGraw-Hill, 1976, pp. 316-318;
Vitale, T. “An algorithm for high accuracy name pronunciation by parametric speech synthesizer”, Computational Linguistics, Vol. 17(3), pp. 257-276, 1991;
Lorenz, A., Stochastic Automata Constructive Theory, John Wiley and Sons, 1974; and
Aldefeld, B. “Automated directory listing retrieval system based on isolated word recognition”,Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 68(11), pp. 1364-1379, 1980.
The disclosures of all above references and publications cited therein are hereby incorporated by reference.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention seeks to provide an improved system for accessing a computerized database from a location which is not in computer communication with the database.
There is thus provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention a database accessing system for processing a request to access a database including a multiplicity of entries, each entry including at least one word, the request including a sequence of representations of possibly erroneous user inputs, the system including a similar word finder operative, for at least one interpretation of each representation, to find at least one database word which is at least similar to that interpretation, and a database entry evaluator operative, for each database word found by the similar word finder, to assign similarity values for relevant entries in the database, the values representing the degree of similarity between each database entry and the request.
Further in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention the request includes a sequence of unambiguous representations of possibly erroneous user inputs.
Still further in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention the relevant entries include all database entries having the database word in an individual context.
Additionally in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention the request includes a sequence of ambiguous representations of possibly erroneous user inputs and also including an ambiguous input evaluator operative to identify at least one interpretation of each ambiguous representation and to provide the interpretation to the similar word finder.
Further in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention the ambiguous input evaluator includes a database analyzer operative to extract database characteristics from the database.
Still further in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention the system also includes a session manager receiving similarity values from the database entry evaluator and operative to interactively provide a user sensible message based on the similarity values.
Additionally in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention the session manager is operative to prompt the user to provide the request by orally spelling at least one database word.
Further in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention the session manager is operative to prompt the user to provide the request by pronouncing at least one database word.
Still further in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention the session manager is operative to prompt the user to provide the request by keying at least one database word on the keypad.
There is additionally provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention a database accessing system for processing a request to access a database including a multiplicity of entries, each entry including at least one word, the request including at least one ambiguous representation of at least one possibly erroneous user input, the system including an ambiguous input evaluator operative to identify a
Gilai Atzmon
Resnekov Hezi
Davis David L.
Homere Jean R.
Phonetic Systems Ltd.
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