Patent Document ID: 7529674
Application ID: 10796242

Base Claim:
1. A computer-implemented method comprising: accessing a request to provide speech animation content to a user using a graphically represented, animated talking agent, the request comprising: emotion, expression, look direction, and voice parameters for the animated talking agent; speech elements including textual content data to be spoken by the animated talking agent, at least a portion of the textual content data being dynamically derived from an item selected by the user in a current application session; a speech attribute defining whether the speech elements are to be sequentially or randomly provided; and context information identifying a characteristic of the user, the characteristic being used to customize the generated speech animation; identifying raw data to be used to generate speech animation content based on the request; generating the speech animation content adapted for the user, using the identified raw data; and providing the generated speech animation content for display to the user.

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Claim 4:
4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein identifying raw data to be used to generate speech animation content comprises comparing the request to provide speech animation content against a cache of previous requests, and wherein generating the speech animation content comprises retrieving previously generated speech animation if the request is identical to a previous request.