Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Clement Yip

David Michael Miller

Dan Banay

Stephen Russell Falcon

Steve Falcon

Systems and methods are described for speech systems that utilize an interaction manager to manage interactions&#x2014;also known as dialogues&#x2014;from one or more applications. The interactions are managed properly even if multiple applications use different grammars. The interaction manager maintains an interaction list. An application wishing to utilize the speech system submits one or more interactions to the interaction manager. Interactions are normally processed in the order in which they are received. An exception to this rule is an interaction that is configured by an application to be processed immediately, which causes the interaction manager to place the interaction at the front of the interaction list of interactions. If an application has designated an interaction to interrupt a currently processing interaction, then the newly submitted application will interrupt any interaction currently being processed and, therefore, it will be processed immediately.

Systems and methods for managing interactions from multiple speech-enabled applications

Systems and methods are described for a speech system that includes one or more speech controls incorporated into one or more speech-enabled applications that run on the speech system. The controls allow applications to be developed with minimal programming effort to incorporate common speech-enabled application functions. A question control provides a customizable template for requesting information from a user. An announcer control allows a speech-enabled application to provide a user with information without having to re-create an entire announcer process each time it is used. A command control provides a simple way to attach command and control functions to speech-enabled applications. A word trainer control provides a way to associate user-selected voice tags with certain information. Providing the controls for use with speech-enabled applications ensures standardized user interfaces across multiple speech-enabled applications.

Speech controls for use with a speech system

Systems and methods are described for a speech system that manages multiple grammars from one or more speech-enabled applications. The speech system includes a speech server that supports different grammars and different types of grammars by exposing several methods to the speech-enabled applications. The speech server supports static grammars that do not change and dynamic grammars that may change after a commit. The speech server provides persistence by supporting persistent grammars that enable a user to issue a command to an application even when the application is not loaded. In such a circumstance, the application is automatically launched and the command is processed. The speech server may enable or disable a grammar in order to limit confusion between grammars. Global and yielding grammars are also supported by the speech server. Global grammars are always active (e.g., 'call 9-1-1') while yielding grammars may be deactivated when an interaction whose grammar requires priority is active.

Growing community of inventors

Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Clement Yip