The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 01, 2002
Filed:
Apr. 29, 1998
Ronald John Bowater, Romsey, GB;
Nicholas David Butler, Romsey, GB;
David Andrew Clarke, Eastleigh, GB;
David Seager Renshaw, Winchester, GB;
Graham Hugh Tuttle, Southampton, GB;
International Business Machines Corp., Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A voice processing system is connected to a switch via multiple telephone lines, and provides a set of line objects, each line object being associated with one of the physical telephone lines. The line object allows a demarcation to be made between the underlying voice processing system software, and external business applications. Thus a line object supports a set of methods such as Get DTMF Tone, Play Audio, Answer Call, and End Call, to allow the external business applications to perform desired operations on a telephone line. These methods are invoked via a set of corresponding IVR action objects, which in turn are integrated into the business application. The business application itself, and its IVR actions, regard the line objects effectively as servers to provide IVR functionality. The business application may therefore run partially or completely on a separate physical machine from the IVR system itself.