Telephonic communications – Special services – Service profile
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-01
2001-11-13
Tsang, Fan (Department: 2645)
Telephonic communications
Special services
Service profile
C379S201040, C379S067100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06317492
ABSTRACT:
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer compilers and interpreters, and more particularly to a compiler and interpreter that facilitates the design and development of automatic response unit (ARU) services.
2. Related Art
Automatic response unit (ARU) services provide users with automated telephone interfaces that deliver options and information. For example, 1-800-MUSICNOW is an ARU service that allows customers to listen to music, select music for ordering, and place orders. Other ARU services include but are not limited to, dating services, stock quote/management services, and health care services.
To use an ARU service, a customer dials a telephone number which connects to an ARU. The ARU plays a recorded message listing a menu of options. The customer invokes a menu selection by pressing a number on a touch-tone telephone. The menu selection may either provide a selected service to the customer, or may provide another menu of options. The customer traverses the different menus until his or her service requests are complete.
The conventional process for developing a new ARU service is to use existing source code as a starting point for the new service and then tailor it to meet the needs of the new service. The current method is to develop code on a case-by-case basis without following standard procedures for the reuse of existing ARU source code including code for menus, menu options, and recorded messages.
A disadvantage of developing an ARU service using conventional development techniques is that there is no architecture for multiple executing ARU services to reuse and share executable source code, menu options, and recorded messages at run time. The reuse of existing ARU source code must be provided without over-generalizing an ARU service to the point of poor performance. The reuse of tested source code and service objects also allows for the quick debugging of new services.
Another disadvantage pertains to mrminimizing development time of new ARU services and maximizing performance. Because conventional development techniques do not take full advantage of reusing existing source code, the development time for a new ARU service is increased In addition, to maximize performance of a new ARU service, the developer must minimize storage of executable source code, menu options, and recorded messages.
Therefore, there is a need for a system and method of streamlining the development of new quality ARU services.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a compiler and interpreter that facilitates the design and development of automatic response unit (ARU) services through a reuse architecture. In one embodiment of the present invention, a developer, such as a programmer, of a new ARU service encodes the ARU service using a source code-like programming language. The compiler and interpreter of the present invention inputs the ARU service encoding and translates it into an executable ARU service.
The compiler and interpreter of the present invention handles ARU service processing that is common across ARU services. Therefore, a developer includes only the customized processing of an ARU service in the ARU service encoding. Partitioning common and customized processing allows new ARU services to reuse existing ARU service processing and source code, thereby eliminating development time and efficiently utilizing network storage.
The present invention also provides a graphical user interface (GUI) tool to conveniently create and maintain an ARU service encoding. Therefore, a developer, such as a non-programmer, of an ARU service can create the ARU service without manually writing an ARU service encoding (using GUI tool).
In addition to a system and method for developing an ARU service, the present invention provides a system and method for processing an ARU service. The system and method for processing an ARU service uses an ARU service encoding that is translated, in one embodiment by an interpreter, to an executable ARU service. The present invention defines an ARU service as a tree structure comprised of service nodes. Each service node has multiple components including variable support, message capability, processing capability, and default capability. A caller may traverse a tree structure for an ARU service using in one embodiment an interpreter translating menu selections. As a caller traverses a tree structure for an ARU service the present invention processes the components of each visited service node.
While the present invention uses the term “ARU services”, it should be understood that 800 call processing plans, automatic call distributor (ACD) implementations, switch or signal call processing, and the like, are also developed using the present invention. The term “ARU services” is used in its broadest interpretation.
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Escalante Ovidio
MCI Communications Corporation
Tsang Fan
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