Patent Document ID: 6138089
Application ID: 09265914

Base Claim:
1. A method for processing a speech signal comprising steps of: identifying a plurality of portions of said speech signal representing individual speech pitches; generating an encoded speech signal from a plurality of said speech pitches, said encoded speech signal retaining ones of said plurality of pitches and omitting other ones of said plurality of pitches, at least one speech pitch being omitted for each speech pitch retained; and generating a reconstructed speech signal by replacing each said omitted pitch with an interpolated replacement pitch having signal waveform characteristics which are interpolated from a first retained reference pitch occurring temporally earlier to said pitch to be interpolated and from a second retained reference pitch occurring temporally later than said pitch to be interpolated.

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Claim 5:
5. The method in claim 1, wherein at least four out of five pitches are omitted and the reconstructed speech signal includes four pitches interpolated from the two surrounding reference pitches.