Patent · US Expired

Unified messaging system with automatic language identification for text-to-speech conversion

US6487533B2 · kind B2 · utility

270Cited by
40References
25Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJan 10, 2000
Grant dateNov 26, 2002
Priority date
Expiry dateJan 10, 2020

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04M2201/60
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A unified messaging system includes a voice gateway server coupled to an electronics mail system and a private branch exchange (PBX). The voice gateway server provides voice messaging services to a set of subscribers. Within the voice gateway server, a trigraph analyzer sequentially examines 3-character combinations within a text message; determines occurrence frequencies for the character combinations; compares the occurrence frequencies with reference occurrence statistics modeled from text samples written in particular languages; and generates a language identifier and a likelihood value for the text message. Based upon the language identifier, a message inquiry unit selects an appropriate text-to-speech engine for converting the text message into computer-generated speech that is played to a subscriber.

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