Multi-channel quiet calls

This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/024,982 filed Dec. 18, 2001 by Lester D. Nelson, et al., entitled “MULTI-CHANNEL QUIET CALLS.”

The present invention relates to telecommunications.

The following U.S. patents are assigned to the assignee of the present application, and their disclosures are incorporated herein by reference:

U.S. Pat. No. 6,941,342 by Lester D. Nelson, issued Sep. 6, 2005, entitled “METHOD FOR GENERATING CONVERSATION UTTERANCES TO A REMOTE LISTENER IN RESPONSE TO A QUIET SELECTION.”

U.S. Pat. No. 6,823,184 by Lester D. Nelson, issued Nov. 23, 2004, entitled “PERSONAL DIGITAL ASSISTANT FOR GENERATING CONVERSATION UTTERANCES TO A REMOTE LISTENER IN RESPONSE TO A QUIET SELECTION.”

U.S. Pat. No. 7,013,279 by Lester D. Nelson, issued Mar. 14, 2006, entitled “PERSONAL COMPUTER AND SCANNER FOR GENERATING CONVERSATION UTTERANCES TO A REMOTE LISTENER IN RESPONSE TO A QUIET SELECTION.”

U.S. Pat. No. 7,106,852 by Lester D. Nelson and Sara Bly, issued Sep. 12, 2006, entitled “TELEPHONE ACCESSORY FOR GENERATING CONVERSATION UTTERANCES TO A REMOTE LISTENER IN RESPONSE TO A QUIET SELECTION.”

U.S. Pat. No. 7,286,649 by Lester D. Nelson, Daniel C. Swinehart, and Tomas Sokoler, issued Oct. 23, 2007, entitled “TELECOMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE FOR GENERATING CONVERSATION UTTERANCES TO A REMOTE LISTENER IN RESPONSE TO A QUIET SELECTION.”

Telecommunication infrastructures provide the ability to converse with a party and be notified of other incoming calls, (i.e. “call waiting”). In addition to being notified of incoming calls, individuals can place an existing call on hold and transfer to another call, or set up conference calls and simultaneously converse and hear multiple parties at the same time.

The ability to be notified of incoming calls (i.e. call waiting) has some negative aspects. For example, when a party is conversing on one call (“call 1”) and they are notified of a second incoming call (“call 2”) they must either place the exiting conversation on hold and switch to the other call or ignore the incoming call altogether. Typical responses to the incoming call are “I\'m on the other line, can you wait a minute?” or “I\'m on the other line, I\'ll call you back.” Once they have informed the incoming call or of their situation they then return to the original call.

Conference calls also have some negative aspects. For example, during a conference call including caller A, Caller B, and Caller C, each caller can hear the conversation of each of the other callers. Currently, there is no way for Caller A to speak privately with Caller B so that Caller C cannot hear the conversation unless he contacts him using another telephone connection.

Therefore, there is a desire to provide a system and method for transmitting information to other callers without interrupting an existing conversation. Additionally, there is a desire to provide a system and method for mixing audio from multiple telephone connections for a party to hear simultaneously while being able to converse with only selected individuals.

Embodiments of the present invention allow people to converse with at least one party while concurrently relaying information to other parties on other channels.

The invention, roughly described, comprises a method for communicating over multiple channels. The method may include the steps of communicating over a first channel, selecting a second channel, selecting a phrase and obtaining an internal representation of a phrase element associated with the selected phrase. Once a phrase has been selected, an audible utterance is generated based on the internal phrase element that is provided over the selected second channel.

In one aspect, the invention comprises a multi-channel telecommunication system. The multi-channel telecommunication system includes an audio input, a channel representation, and a phrase representation. The channel and phrase representation are stored on memory. A phrase element associated with the phrase representation wherein the phrase element has an internal representation of an audible utterance may also be stored in the memory. A processor coupled to the audio input, display and memory, provides a first control signal and a second control signal, and an audio generator generates an audible utterance responsive to the first control signal and the conversation element. A channel selector coupled to the processor and audio generator, selects a channel responsive to the second control signal and provides the audible utterance over the selected channel.

In a further aspect, the system may comprise a plurality of input channels a processing device for storing an internal representation of a phrase element and a scanning device, coupled with the processing device, for reading a first code associated with the phrase element and for reading a second code associated with at least one of said input channels. The processing device provides an audible utterance over the channel associated with said second code in response to reading the first code and the second code.