Patent Document ID: 6092045
Application ID: 09119621

Base Claim:
1. A computer implemented method of comparing a series of observations representing unknown speech, to stored models representing known speech, the series of observations being divided into at least two blocks each comprising two or more of the observations, the method comprising the steps of: a) comparing two or more of the observations in one of the blocks of observations representing unknown speech, to a subset comprising one or more of the models representing known speech, to determine a likelihood of a match to each of the one or more models; b) repeating step a) for models other than those in the subset; and c) repeating steps a) and b) for a different one of the blocks, and thereby recognizing the unknown speech in terms of the known speech.

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Claim 7:
7. The method of claim 1 wherein step a) comprises the steps of: comparing the block of observations to a predetermined sequence of the models in the subset; determining for each of the models in the sequence, a score which represents the likelihood of a match with the observations compared so far; storing the score in a score buffer for use in determining scores of subsequent models in the sequence; and determining when the score is no longer needed, then re-using the score buffer to store a subsequent score.