Patent ID: 7139713

Claim:
A speech system, comprising: a speech server; an interaction object that is callable by one or more speech-enabled applications to enable a speech-enabled application to submit an interaction to the speech sewer; an interaction manager configured to prioritize interactions submitted to the speech sewer by ordering the interactions in an interaction list, the interaction list having a front and an end, wherein an interaction at the front of the interaction list is processed before other interactions in the interaction list are processed; wherein the interaction manager places an interaction received from a speech-enabled application at the end of the interaction list unless the interaction manager detects an indication to place the interaction received from the speech-enabled application at the front of the interaction list ahead of other interactions in the interaction list; wherein the interaction manager places the interaction received from the speech-enabled application at the front of the list if the interaction manager detects an indication to do so in the interaction received from the speech-enabled application; wherein the interaction manager interrupts an interaction currently processing when an interaction received by the speech-enabled application is added to the interaction list and the application specifies that the newly added interaction is to interrupt the interaction currently being processed; and wherein after the interrupting interaction is processed, the interrupted interaction may resume processing where the interrupted interaction left off, start over, or not resume processing if a self-destruct flag is set in the interrupted interaction.