Patent · US Expired

Machine answer detection

US5371787A · kind A · utility

152Cited by
9References
15Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateMar 1, 1993
Grant dateDec 6, 1994
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 1, 2013

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04M2203/2027
  • WIPO fieldTelecommunications
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A detector to indicate if a telephone call was answered by an answering machine or a live person includes (to analyze frames): a click detector; a ring detector; a voice detector; an energy detector; and a controller. The controller routes to: a voice analyzer if voice occurred; a ring analyzer if ring started, continues, or ended; a noise detector if there is neither ring nor voice; a click analyzer if a click occurred; an answer analyzer if ring did not start in the frame; and a silence analyzer. The noise detector detects noise; the ring analyzer detects start time, end time, and length of ring; the click analyzer detects click time; the answer analyzer detects call answer time; the silence analyzer detects silence and the time of predetermined lengths of silence; and the voice analyzer detects the first frame of voice and routes to an on-first voice analyzer or to an after-first voice analyzer. Lastly, the on-first voice analyzer determines if the call was answered by an answering machine and routes to a reporter and the after-first voice analyzer determines if the telephone call was answered by an answering machine or a live person and routes to the reporter.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.