Patent ID: 7797159

Claim:
A voice-controlled messaging system comprising: a voice messaging system; and a speech recognition system coupled to the voice messaging system via a control link over a wired or wireless transmission channel, the speech recognition system including a speech recognition application and a voice messaging application, the control link providing a communications pathway for out-of-band TCP/IP messages between the voice messaging system and the speech recognition system; wherein the voice messaging system is operable to (1) receive an incoming call from a caller; (2) connect the call to the speech recognition system via an audio channel pursuant to at least one out-of-band TCP/IP message sent to the speech recognition system over the control link, the out-of-band TCP/IP message requesting the establishment of an audio path between the voice messaging system and the speech recognition system whereby spoken commands received by the voice messaging system can be directly delivered to the speech recognition system; (3) receive, via the control link, at least one out-of-band TCP/IP message from the speech recognition system; and (4) process the call pursuant to the at least one received out-of-band TCP/IP message; and wherein the speech recognition system is operable to (1) provide, via the audio channel, at least one audio prompt eliciting a spoken response from the caller; (2) receive a spoken response via the audio channel; (3) interpret the spoken response to produce an executable command; and (4) send the executable command to the voice messaging system as an out-of-band TCP/IP message over the control link, wherein the executable command dictates the call processing by the voice messaging system.