Lucent Technologies Inc.

Alcatel Lucent

At+t Corp.

Peter John Danielsen

Thomas J Ball

Peter Andrew Mataga

Kenneth G Rehor

Lalita Jategaonkar Jagadeesan

Konstantin Laufer

Robert J Hall

Loren Gilbert Terveen

Mark Logan Tuomenoksa

Elena Maria Papavero

Pamela Jean Culbreth

In one embodiment, a telecommunication device for Internet-based conference calling with one or more similar telecommunication devices. The telecommunication device is used by a plurality of co-located participants, each participant having an individually identifiable microphone. The telecommunication device accesses a database correlating each individually identifiable microphone to participant ID and information. During the conference-call setup, the similar telecommunication devices exchange participant IDs and corresponding information. The conference-call audio content is then exchanged using RTP packets, where the telecommunication devices generate RTP packets containing the participant IDs of participants contributing to the content of each RTP packet. Receiving telecommunication devices then display corresponding participant information when playing the audio content of received RTP packets to identify current speakers. Individual, identifiable microphones improve the audio quality received by remote participants and permit the automatic exchange and display of the current participants and the current speakers.

Conference-call participant-information processing

Interactive services with multiple interfaces are realized by employing a modular approach to their implementation. Such an approach facilitates supporting natural language understanding interaction with users through use of interfaces that at least allow the user to provide information beyond what is currently being requested by the service, and/or different ordering of inputs, and/or incomplete information, and/or correction of information, and/or the return of control to prior points in the service. This is realized, in an embodiment of the invention, by employing an interactive service logic that uses &ldquo;reactive constraint graphs&rdquo;, i.e., a form of event-driven graph in which nodes contain constraints on events, in conjunction with a service monitor. The service monitor manages the communication between the service logic and the multiple user interfaces. As such it provides a communication mechanism in the form of a so-called &ldquo;look ahead&rdquo; in which the user can input information beyond what is currently required by the interactive service. Specifically, in each round of user interaction, reactive constraint graphs report to the service monitor the set of events that are currently enabled. These enabled events correspond to the information the interactive service is currently requesting (or ready to accept) from a user. The user interfaces collect information (perhaps beyond this set) from the user and send it to the service monitor. The service monitor then matches the received information against the information requested by the service logic, and sends the information one event at a time to the service logic, in a priority order specified by the service provider. After each event is sent to the service logic from the service monitor, the service logic reports its new set of enabled events back to the service monitor. In turn, the service monitor sends another event that matches the enabled events to the service logic. The service monitor then notifies the user interfaces to send a new collection, i.e., set, of information from the individual users only when no current information matches the enabled events. This approach advantageously allows a user to input information beyond what is currently needed by the interactive service.

Method and apparatus for providing interactive services with multiple interfaces

Interactive voice response (IVR) services are provided to an end user at a telephone terminal ( ) connected to the PSTN ( ) through a telephone/IP server ( ) that serves as an interface between the PSTN and an IP network ( ) such as the Internet. A first IVR service is provided by a web server ( ) running a service logic ( ) for that service, which produces pages formatted in a phone markup language (PML) in response to an HTTP request sent over the IP network by the telephone/IP server to the web server at the URL address associated with the service. Hyperlinks to a second IVR service offered on a web server ( ) at a different URL address are embedded and associated with a specific question or statement in a PML-formatted page produced by the first service. When the end user affirmatively responds to that statement or question through a verbal or touch-tone input, the telephone/IP server translates that response as a &ldquo;click&rdquo; on the hyperlink and establishes a virtual connection to the hyperlinked URL address of the web server providing the second service. Further, information associated with the end user's interaction with the first service, such as his identity, PIN, and/or zip code, is transferred to the second service by means of a cookie, URL encoding or other information transference mechanism, to provide an audio experience that seamlessly transfers the end user from the first service to the second.

Method of providing transfer capability on web-based interactive voice response services

Interactive services are provided by employing a modular approach to implementing interactive services with multiple interfaces. Such an approach facilitates supporting natural language understanding interaction with users through use of interfaces that allow at least different ordering of inputs, and/or incomplete information, and/or correction of information, and/or the return of control to prior points in the service. This is realized, in an embodiment of the invention, by employing a single interactive service logic that uses &ldquo;reactive constraint graphs&rdquo;, i.e., a form of event-driven graph, in which nodes contain a set of constraints on events. Specifically, control progresses from a node to a derivative node, i.e., &ldquo;child&rdquo;, only when all the constraints in the set on the node have been satisfied. A single set of constraints implicitly supports a significant number of the possible different orderings of inputs. Incomplete information is supported because the constraints in the set are evaluated as soon as possible. Correction of information is supported because information in the constraint set is updated upon receipt of new information. Indeed, use of the reactive constraint graphs allows nodes to be labeled, and allows control to revert to a prior node, i.e., ancestor, hence allowing the user to go back to prior points in the service. New inputs can be added to the constraint sets with a complexity polynomial of the order of the input set.

A personal telephone messaging agent can automate routine scheduling, coordinating and information gathering tasks while maintaining the advantages inherent in the telephone system. A person specifies a message and, optionally, some specific questions, and a list of recipients to his or her personal messaging agent. The messaging agent delivers the message to and collects a response from each messaging recipient using the telephone system. When each intended recipient has been reached, the agent contacts the sender to report the results or, optionally, the agent could undertake routine tasks such as scheduling a meeting based upon the responses and assigning a conference room for the meeting. An even more sophisticated personal telephone agent may be employed in the context of an information retrieval service. An IVR system has an interface designed for people to use. However, the databases of information that an IVR system draws upon could be accessed over the telephone network by an automated agent using an interface designed for agent access. In this way, a messaging agent can be used to retrieve the desired information and report back to the caller. The personal telephone messaging system of the present invention can be applied to tasks such as scheduling a meeting, confirming a decision, determining the price of an item, and finding flight information.

Growing community of inventors

Naperville, IL, United States of America

Peter John Danielsen