Patent Document ID: 8073681
Application ID: 11580926

Base Claim:
1. A method for providing a cooperative conversational voice user interface, comprising: receiving an utterance at a voice input device during a current conversation with a user, wherein the utterance includes one or more words that have different meanings in different contexts; accumulating short-term shared knowledge about the current conversation, wherein the short-term shared knowledge includes knowledge about the utterance received during the current conversation; accumulating long-term shared knowledge about the user, wherein the long-term shared knowledge includes knowledge about one or more past conversations with the user; determining an intended meaning for the utterance, wherein determining the intended meaning for the utterance includes: identifying, at a conversational speech engine, a context associated with the utterance from the short-term shared knowledge and the long-term shared knowledge; and establishing the intended meaning within the identified context, wherein the conversational speech engine establishes the intended meaning within the identified context to disambiguate an intent that the user had in speaking the one or more words that have the different meanings in the different contexts; and generating a response to the utterance, wherein the conversational speech engine grammatically or syntactically adapts the response based on the intended meaning established within the identified context.

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Claim 5:
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the intended meaning for the utterance further includes: identifying a conversational goal associated with the utterance, roles associated with the user and one or more other participants in the current conversation, and an information allocation among the user and the one or more other participants in the current conversation; and classifying one or more of the utterance or the current conversation into a conversation type based on one or more of the identified conversational goal, the identified roles, or the identified information allocation, wherein the conversational speech engine further establishes the intended meaning based on the conversation type.