James R Mckinley

US Patent:

6421672, Jul 16, 2002

Filed:

Jul 27, 1999

Appl. No.:

09/361243

Inventors:

Alexander I. McAllister - Silver Spring MD
James McKinley - Springfield VA

Assignee:

Verizon Services Corp. - Arlington VA

International Classification:

G06F 1730

US Classification:

707 10, 707 4, 707 6, 704246, 704251

Abstract:

A telephone directory search method and system intelligently utilizes secondary information contained in subscriber listings to disambiguate search results and provide telephone number and other data associated with a desired party. Upon identification of more than one listing for a particular requested named party, the system searches through secondary information for each of the parties to identify distinguishing information which is solicited from the calling party. Thus, where there are multiple listings for a particular name, the system attempts to identify distinguishing categories of information such as location, department, terminal type, etc. , helpful in refocusing the search and eliminating listings from further consideration. The system considers the size of the candidate list in providing prompts, enumerating secondary data for selection when there are few qualifying entries, while generally soliciting information pertaining to the identified category when there is a wide range of secondary information entries to be considered. To enhance user confidence in system understanding of name information, the system incorporates the name pronunciation used by the calling party in system formulation of prompts and announcements provided back to that caller.

US Patent:

20020176560, Nov 28, 2002

Filed:

May 24, 2001

Appl. No.:

09/866095

Inventors:

James McKinley - Bowie MD, US
Alexander McAllister - Mercerberg PA, US
Rita Yadav - Ellicott City MD, US
John Eidsness - Bowie MD, US

Assignee:

Verizon Federal, Inc.

International Classification:

H04M007/00

US Classification:

379/219000

Abstract:

A method of creating an application-based subnet for enhanced telephony call processing includes the steps of determining during the processing of a call that the call may require additional call processing services available at a second node located within an application-specific subnet, and transferring the call and call control to the application-specific subnet for further call processing.