Scansoft, Inc.

Telelogic, Inc.

David C Petty

Laurence Steven Gillick

Robert S Roth

Barbara R Peskin

Linda Manganaro

Ashwin Rao

Joseph M Jackson

William J Harris

A computer-based method of routing a message to a system includes receiving a message, and processing the message using large-vocabulary continuous speech recognition to generate a string of text corresponding to the message. The method includes generating a confidence estimate of the string of text corresponding to the message and comparing the confidence estimate to a predetermined threshold. If the confidence estimate satisfies the predetermined threshold, the string of text is forwarded to the system. If the confidence estimate does not satisfy the predetermined threshold, the information relating to the message is forwarded to a transcriptionist. The message may include one or more utterances. Each utterance in the message may be separately or jointly processed. In this way, a confidence estimate may be generated and evaluated for each utterance or for the whole message. Information relating to each utterance may be separately or jointly forwarded based on the results of the generation and evaluation.

Methods and systems of routing utterances based on confidence estimates

An automatic dialer for controlling access to a long-distance telephone network. The automatic dialer includes a read/write memory. Each time the user attempts to call through the network a telephone number inaccessible via the network, an entry representing the area code and/or exchange of that telephone number is made in the memory. Prior to calling the network, the dialer compares the destination telephone number with the entries in the memory; the call is placed via the network only if the area code and exchange of the destination number do not match any of the entries. The entries in the memory are ordered according to recency of attempts by the user to access a telephone number within the groups of telephone numbers represented by the entries; when the memory is filled, the oldest entry is deleted to make room for the newest entry. Memory entries may be erased manually or automatically, by the network control station, without human intervention, to remove entries corresponding to areas added to the network. Automatic erasure is accomplished by the network sending an appropriate command, using tone signalling, as part of a message that the user has attempted to call a location not covered by the network.

Automatic dialer for telephone network access control

Growing community of inventors

Cambridge, MA, United States of America

David C Petty