Patent ID: 7792676

Claim:
A method for providing communication services on a computer network, the communication services being operable with a plurality of human interpreters, having a provider computer and a user computer, wherein each of the plurality of human interpreters has a predefined set of service criteria, the method comprising: receiving a request for communication services on the provider computer from a first user via the user computer, the first user requiring at least one of the plurality of human interpreters to facilitate communication with a second user, the request for communication services including user-selected service criteria; comparing, on the provider computer, user-selected service criteria with the predefined set of service criterion of the one of the plurality of human interpreters to determine a degree of match; selecting one of the plurality of human interpreters from the degree of match; transmitting, from the user computer, information to be interpreted to the selected human interpreter; and receiving, on the user computer, a response from the selected human interpreter, wherein the response is manually input by the selected human interpreter and corresponds to a interpretation of the transmitted information from the user computer.