Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US8223944?dq=6,202,00
Timestamp: 2014-12-18 04:29:21
Document Index: 229668250

Matched Legal Cases: ['Application No. 61', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 61', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 2875', 'Application No. 2875', 'Application No. 543885', 'Application No. 543885']

Patent US8223944 - Conference call management system - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign inAdvanced Patent SearchPatentsSystems and methods are described for improving connection to and management of conference calls. An inference/rules engine and human backed speech interpretation subsystem enable the system to efficiently use knowledge about the call to identify the caller and determine to which conference he or she...http://www.google.com/patents/US8223944?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US8223944 - Conference call management systemAdvanced Patent SearchPublication numberUS8223944 B2Publication typeGrantApplication numberUS 12/618,743Publication dateJul 17, 2012Filing dateNov 15, 2009Priority dateMay 5, 2003Also published asUS20100061539Publication number12618743, 618743, US 8223944 B2, US 8223944B2, US-B2-8223944, US8223944 B2, US8223944B2InventorsMichael Eric Cloran, Mitchell Gregory Shields, Theron Justin Lamm, Jeromey Russell Goetz, David Paul Heitzman, Jason Aaron KolbOriginal AssigneeInteractions CorporationExport CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatent Citations (56), Non-Patent Citations (9), Referenced by (5), Classifications (9), Legal Events (2) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetConference call management systemUS 8223944 B2Abstract Systems and methods are described for improving connection to and management of conference calls. An inference/rules engine and human backed speech interpretation subsystem enable the system to efficiently use knowledge about the call to identify the caller and determine to which conference he or she should be connected. During the conference, a virtual assistant is available to interpret and execute system commands spoken by a caller, such as in a side conference accessed via DTMF tones.
REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a nonprovisional of and claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/121,041, which was titled �Conference Call Management System� and filed on Dec. 9, 2008. This application also claims priority to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/551,864, filed on Sep. 1, 2009, with title �Apparatus and Method for Processing Service Interactions,�; which is a continuation of U.S. Pat. No. 7,606,718, titled �Apparatus and Method for Processing Service Interactions,� issued on Oct. 20, 2009; which was a nonprovisional of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/467,935, titled �System and Method for Processing Service Interactions� and filed on May 5, 2003. This application is also related to U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/142,463, titled �Real-Time Conference Call Transcription� and filed on Jan. 5, 2009, and to a commonly assigned US application titled �Real-Time Transcription� being filed on even date herewith. All of these applications are hereby incorporated by reference herein as if fully set forth.
FIELD The present invention relates to telephonic communications. More specifically, the present invention relates to telephonic conferencing.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a block diagram of participants in a conference call system according to one embodiment of the present description.
DESCRIPTION For the purpose of promoting an understanding of the principles of the invention, reference will now be made to certain embodiments illustrated herein, and specific language will be used to describe the same. It should nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope of the invention is thereby intended, such alterations and further modifications to the illustrated device, and such further applications of the principles of the invention as illustrated therein being contemplated as will occur to those skilled in the art to which the invention relates.
Generally, participants 110, 120, and 130 conduct the voice portion of a conference call using techniques that will be understood by those skilled in the art. While the call is in progress, using the techniques and technologies presented in this disclosure, the system provides a virtual assistant backed by a human interpreter of the callers' intent. In this example embodiment, the system uses information about incoming calls to accelerate identification of the caller and selection from among multiple conferences to which the caller might want to connect. Once connected, participant 110 can access a virtual assistant on the conference call by pressing a numeric key on their telephone. The system then interacts with the participant conversationally, with the participant's speech being interpreted by human �intent analysts� who enter input into the system that reflects their interpretation of the participant's intended command (and, as needed or appropriate, other data). The system executes the requested command and provides audio feedback to the participant.
In some embodiments, this system uses a �service factory� as described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,606,718 (the �Service Factory Patent�), which is hereby incorporated fully by reference, to process interactions with conference leaders and participants. Audio from calls is presented by the system to one or more intent analysts who determine the intent of the participant and enter corresponding intent input into an analyst user interface. The analyst user interface presents to the intent analyst a list of most likely matches based on information available to the system. In various embodiments, the system populates the intent analyst interface as a function of relevant, available information, such as time of day, ANI data, authenticated caller data, conference name, conference leader, number and/or identity of other participants in the conference, the history of calls (by the speaker, others on the conference call, or even others not on the call) to the system, and progressive input (of typed keystrokes or mouse clicks, for example) by the intent analyst.
In this embodiment, the system 300 uses the service factory 320 in part to make callers' authentication and connection to a conference call much easier and more efficient. For example, many existing conference calling systems require callers to enter a personal identification number (�PIN�) so that the system knows the conference in which the caller would like to participate. Unfortunately, this data is often system-generated, so all callers�even the call organizer�must obtain the PIN, retain that PIN from the time the call is scheduled to the time of the call itself, retrieve the PIN when it is time for the call, and enter the PIN (typically using a telephone keypad) to participate in the call. Even when a particular call organizer can always use the same number, it must still be communicated with other call participants, who must remember yet another identification number on top of their usual collection of passwords and the like.
In this embodiment, conference call participants do not need to know a conference number or PIN in order to access a particular conference. With certain exceptions (discussed below), the system asks callers to say their name and the name of the conference or conference leader, and they may immediately be connected. At the option of the call leader, the system may require callers to know and say a password (when prompted by the system) before they are permitted to join. In some embodiments, the system is configured to use available information to infer the identity of the caller and adapt the authentication process accordingly. For example, if all calls bearing a particular ANI have been associated with the same user, new calls bearing that ANI might prompt the user's name with �Are you <name>?� In some of these embodiments, the prompt for a password might also be dispensed within such circumstances. Other adaptations are described below.
When in a conference, participants can press their phone's pound (�#�) key to be �connected� to a virtual assistant in a private side conversation, or �sidebar.� In this embodiment, when this connection is activated, the system 300 saves the state associated with user 110, 120, or 130 in the main conference, mutes that caller's audio output (so they are no longer heard in the main conference), and redirects the caller's audio to a new �prompt conference.� SIP server 320 adds service factory 330 into the �prompt conference� and also adds a one-way (input) audio connection from the main conference at reduced volume (such as 75% of its normal, full volume). A prerecorded audio prompt is played for the participant, requesting a command.
After a command is given, feedback from the system concerning execution of the command (acknowledgement, success, failure, or delay notices, for example) is mixed into the audio being sent to the participant's audio device. The participant may press the pound key again to restore his or her connection state in the main conference, or the system may automatically restore his or her connection to the main conference if the command has been gathered and the system determines that no additional information is needed. The participant can even toggle between the main conference and the private conference with the attendant as necessary by pressing the pound key. In any case, when the user switches back to the main conference, the caller's audio is muted in the prompt conference and redirected to the main conference, effectively unmuting the caller. If the command is still being processed, or if the system otherwise expects to require additional information from or provide feedback to the user in connection with the command, then the prompt conference is maintained with unmuted input only from service factory 330. When all interaction relating to apparently complete, the system 300 tears down the prompt conference, disconnecting the service factory 330 and the caller, and freeing resources that had been allocated to that conference. If further direct, �sidebar� interaction between the user and the system is needed, another �prompt conference� is setup.
One or more interfaces (also called �clients� herein) are provided to show users the details of the conference that they are currently on in substantially real time. This interface may allow the users to issue system commands using a computer interface that could be spoken to the virtual attendant. In various embodiments, this interface is provided via a web or mobile interface, for example, though additional alternatives will occur to those skilled in the art in view of this disclosure. The interface may also allow users to see an indication of a conference to which a particular user has been invited and that has started, but the user is not currently in, so that with a click on a �join now� button, the virtual operator can dial out to the user, knowing who he or she is, and which conference he or she wants to join, simultaneously connecting the user via mobile or web application to the real-time view.
In some embodiments, the name capture technology described herein, when combined with transcription, allows the user to issue advanced searches across multiple past conferences. A presentation of a conference history also enables the user to schedule a new conference with the same parameters (e.g., participants, time of day, day of week, telephone numbers used, documents available, and matter reference number) as a previous one�at least as a starting point for the setup of the new conference.
Her identity and/or her role can also be used to adapt the web interface, applying permissions and adding, disabling, or removing other features. In some embodiments, the system monitors each audio line individually, and the web interface may present visual �active speaker� indicators in the interfaces that show which participants in the conference call are talking at any given time. The interfaces may also allow the leader to schedule the conference in advance, in which case the virtual assistant will call and automatically request (by playing prerecorded audio) the individual to join at the scheduled time, or the leader may choose to start the conference immediately. Another portion of the web interface may present text-based chat, whiteboarding, file sharing, or application sharing with some or all of the other participants in the conference call and, in some embodiments, with still other parties.
As a person participates in more conference calls over time, the system 300 learns the habits and patterns of that person's use of the system. For example, if a particular telephone number is listed in Joe Smith's profile with the system, and Joe Smith is the only one who ever calls from that number (or he is the caller from that number at least x % of the time over at least y calls), then the system might shorten the authentication process for calls received from that number to �Are you Joe Smith?� If a pattern is consistent enough, and a new call fits the pattern with a high enough level of confidence, the system might even assume authentication and skip that prompt altogether.
Likewise, the system 300 uses other aspects of incoming calls and its history of managed calls to guess to which conference that caller might wish to be connected. For example, if several participants call in from area code 317 for a �developer team meeting� every Wednesday morning just before 10:00, and another call comes in at close to that time from that area code from a caller who has participated in those calls before, then the system might simply authenticate the caller, then ask the caller whether she is calling for the developer team meeting. In other embodiments, or if the pattern is sufficiently consistent, the user might be connected to the developer team meeting without a prompt. This technique of recognizing and applying patterns in call data saves a great deal of time and trouble in connecting individuals to their conference calls. The system for collecting, analyzing, and applying this kind of data to facilitate authentication and connection to a conference is discussed in additional detail herein.
In various embodiments of the system 300, the principles described in the Service Factory Patent are applied to a wide variety of recognition tasks described herein. For example, an audio stream of a caller's answer to a prompt �What's your name?� might be sent to an intent analyst who listens to the audio and enters into the system his or her interpretation the caller's intent. For example, the intent analyst might select the name the caller spoke from among a list of individuals who have called from the caller's area code at the particular time of day at which the present call arrived. The intent analyst's interface might include or exclude persons from the list as a function of automatic transcription of the audio, ANI data, confidence and/or identification data from automatic transcription, time of day, day of week, and the like.
The service factory 330 is also called upon for interpretation of caller's requests of the system, such as for application of particular features by way of a sidebar conference, as discussed above. When a caller presses the �#� key, for example, the system plays an audio prompt and captures the audio from the caller, and an intent analyst interprets the intent of the caller. In some embodiments, service factory 320 presents options for interpretation of the caller's command based on the frequency of those selections, adapted in some embodiments based on the history of commands issued by that particular caller. The system then responds automatically to the intent that is captured by the intent analyst.
In some embodiments, �double checking� of intent analysts' interpretations is performed as system load permits. Double checking involves the playing of caller audio for more than one intent analyst. If the intent captured by a majority of the analyst's is the same, that intent is selected as the intent of the caller, and business rules applied by service factory 330 and other components in the system 300 automatically respond accordingly. In some situations, the audio is played for two or more intent analysts. If they disagree, an additional �tiebreaker� intent analyst reviews the audio and determines which was the correct intent. In some embodiments, double checking is automatically performed for all input that arrives when a person's name, conference name, or password is expected based on the call context. In other embodiments, double checking is forced for more, fewer, or other categories.
Additional discussion regarding filling the intent analyst's interface is presented in the �Fuzzy Name Matching� section just below.
5.1 Fuzzy Name Matching�Background
The service factory 330 uses humans (analysts) to capture the intent of a given caller's �utterance.� These utterances could be the name of the conference the caller wants to join, an email address they wish to register, the account number for which they wish to hear the balance, etc. In the pursuit of trying to capture a caller's intent quickly, yet without jeopardizing accuracy, a system design called the �Blooming Flower Architecture� was created. This framework enables any number of services to run inside a central process and utilizes a �push� method of providing possible answers to the analyst. This �push� method of some embodiments removes most or all of the guesswork and enables analysts to choose from a list of possible matches, as opposed to having to type out the entire answer.
Blooming Flower is a Java Message Service (�JMS�) solution that allows the intent analyst's interface device (one example is described in the Service Factory Patent) to send requests to a specific �service� and receive a response within milliseconds. The request might take the form of a partial address, and the response would return a list of fully qualified and verified addresses pulled from the U.S. Postal Service database. Another service might take a partial user name and return a list of possible matches from a back office database. Still other services are provided in system 300 as will occur to those skilled in the area of technology.
Each service 416 x supports an �isAvailable( )� method that lets the leaf server know whether it is available. In this implementation, it is up to each service to set this property appropriately and perform whatever steps are necessary to �fix itself� or raise an alert to an operator in the event of a failure. For example, since the address capture service uses a database, then when that database is unavailable, the service will page a technical operations specialist and switch to a backup database.
1) An internal database populated with data from external resources. The tables holding this data are referred to as �repositories.� Repositories can be populated in real time, dynamically during operation, or on startup. Data is stored in these repositories and kept in memory for fast access. 2) A parsing tool to manipulate both queries and repository entries to support more accurate and efficient comparisons between them. 3) A service layer that leverages the present architecture. Any number of services can be created to expose fuzzy matching functionality. Suggested uses of the fuzzy search include matching names of people, email addresses, postal addresses, and FAQs. A base service is created for each requested knowledge �domain,� and then each business team extends the base functionality to apply its own business rules.
The system first passes the entire string value (e.g., �Patrick�) of the token into the descriptor factory and captures the descriptors generated. Then a character is removed from the end (e.g., �Patric�), and the remaining letters are run through the descriptor factory again. This process is continued until no characters remain. During this process, only the new descriptors are captured. If, for some reason, a duplicate descriptor is received, it is ignored. FIG. 5 illustrates the beginning of this process. Once all the descriptors for a given token have been produced, a new entry can be inserted into the repository. FIG. 6 illustrates a typical name repository.
This section walks through an example of value assignment: *Query=�Patrick Barry�*
[First_Name=�PATRICK�] [Last_Name=�BARRY�]
3) The system then calculates the �Decreasing Factor.� Remember, when one generates the descriptors for a token, they iteratively drop characters off the end of the token until no characters are left. With every truncation, the value of that descriptor should decrease by a certain factor. That is where the �Decreasing Factor� comes into play. In this example:
So scoring for �PATRICK� would be something like:
The �Exact Descriptor� is weighted differently and does not decrease in value as characters are removed. Therefore, every time one can match to an Exact Descriptor, the score for that descriptor will go up MAX_SCORE*<token multiplier>.
The identity framework provides the exemplary system 300 with the means to obtain the desired accuracy rate. The Identity Framework achieves this in the present embodiment by integrating a fuzzy search capability into the service factory 330; gathering various data points, referred to as �facts� within the context of the framework, from the service factory 330 and the system's data repository; utilizing a rules engine in the back office 340 to process the facts; and leveraging a graph-oriented programming paradigm to navigate through the complexity of the framework.
A walkthrough is a definition of a fact-finding requirement. For example, if the conference has not been identified, a �Conference Name� walkthrough will be executed in some embodiments. This walkthrough in such embodiments identifies all information required for a user interface to present to the user pertinent information to reach the result of the user identifying the conference to which he or she wishes to be connected. Walkthroughs generally contain a collection of logic and known facts, together allowing the designer of each user interface in the system to decide how it prefers to present the facts to the user to gather any additional facts needed for interaction with and operation of the system.
Following this approach facilitates the use of complex rules that would be rather cumbersome to develop with a traditional development approach. For example, consider a walkthrough that determines whether the caller is user John Smith: the �Is this John Smith?� walkthrough. This walkthrough gives a personal touch to the system by asking the caller if they are who the system �thinks� they are. Implemented without Drools, the rule to determine whether or not to execute this walkthrough was fairly simple: �Had the same name been captured for the previous two calls for the given ANI?� This caused users of phones in conference rooms never to experience this personal touch. By using Drools and the walkthrough rule format, a more complex rule set can easily be added. A community ANI rule has been created to determine the likelihood that the ANI is a conference room phone. If the system determines this to be the case based on the community ANI rule, then another rule will check for the previous two names for a given ANI, also considering the conference name given by the caller. This allows each call from a conference room by a different person to experience the personal touch of �Is this John Smith?�
�Ask If Caller Wants To Rejoin Conference� Walkthrough:
Do Not Ask Is This So And So If Caller Name Has Been Identified Do Not Ask Is This So And So If It Has Already Been Asked Once Ask Is This So And So If ANI Belongs To A Single Profile And Is A Cell Phone Ask Is This So And So If ANI Belongs To A Single Profile And Is A Home Phone Ask Is This So And So If At Least The Previous 2 Names On The ANI Have Been The Same And The ANI Is Not A Community ANI Ask Is This So And So If At Least The Previous 2 Names On The ANI For A Given Leader Have Been The Same And The ANI Is A Community ANI Do Not Ask Is This So And So If Caller Name Is �Web Tester� Ask Is This So And So Ask To Speak And Spell Caller Name Walkthrough:
A tool in the present system for identifying conferences and callers is the fuzzy search functionality implemented with the Blooming Flower Architecture (see the �Fuzzy Name Matching� section herein). The ability for the service factory 330 to perform fuzzy searches on names increases the accuracy provided by the service factory 330. In some embodiments of the system, the service factory 330 treats the names �John� and �Jon� differently. As both names sound the same when spoken, it is nearly impossible for the service factory 330 to capture whether the caller's intent is �John� or �Jon.� Fuzzy search allows the service factory 330 to treat the two names the same. This enables the service factory 330 to capture the caller's intent simply as a name, regardless of the spelling of the name.
In this exemplary embodiment, a BlazeDS server consumes JMS messages produced by the system's back office 340. BlazeDS then interprets the JMS messages and composes AMP Flex messages relevant to connected RCSAs. In the present system, it is installed and runs on the same servlet container as the system's back office 340, though other embodiments will use different architectures and deployment schemes. Custom software pieces implemented using the BlazeDS plug-in infrastructure and API, and remote objects that utilize the back office web services, are configured in the standard BlazeDS configuration files, which are source-controlled and deployed along with any deployments of the RCSA code base. Sun's implementation of JMS, Sun's Java Message System (�MQ� or �OpenMQ�), is one suitable transport and broker for JMS messaging from back office 340. Back office managers based on existing back office architecture manage web sessions, including JMS message delivery, persistence and session maintenance, as will occur to those skilled in this technology area.
In this exemplary embodiment, the Back Office Routing Mechanisms are a set of Java classes responsible for routing JMS messages through the back office server instance using JMS selectors. A RCSA instance will only consume messages addressed with its session identification. The routing mechanisms include a manager instance for every connected RCSA, worker instances for each message type, and actions that describe what the system's response should be to a received message. For example, a �mute my line� worker running under a manager for a given RCSA would receive a mute message, queue it, and take action that actually mutes the user's line.
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