...that Thomas Edison's patent application on his phonograph was approved by the Patent Office in just seven weeks? In contrast, it took Gordon Gould, the inventor of the laser, 30 years to obtain his patent -- finally awarded in 1988!
Make the Most of PatentStorm
See this month's Top Inventors and Most Cited Patents.
Stay on top of the latest patents by subscribing to an RSS feed.
Got questions? Ask a Patent Expert!
Registered users: Manage your profile, comments and alerts.
AbstractImproved automated synthesis of human audible speech from text is disclosed. Performance enhancement of the underlying text comprehensibility is obtained through prosodic treatment of the synthesized material, improved speaking rate treatment, and improved methods of spelling words or terms for the system user. Prosodic shaping of text sequences appropriate for the discourse in large groupings of text segments, with prosodic boundaries developed to indicate conceptual units within the text groupings, is implemented in a preferred embodiment.Other References
| InventorAssigneeApplicationNo. 790578 filed on 01/29/1997US Classes:704/260, Image to speech704/9, Natural language704/266Specialized modelField of Search704/200, SPEECH SIGNAL PROCESSING704/260, Image to speech704/258, Synthesis704/235, Speech to image704/9, Natural language704/266, Specialized model704/277TranslationExaminersPrimary: Hudspeth, DavidAssistant: Storm, Donald L. Attorney, Agent or FirmUS Patent References3704345, 4470150, Voice synthesizer with automatic pitch and speech rate modulationIssued on: 09/04/1984 Inventor: Ostrowski4685135, Text-to-speech synthesis system Issued on: 08/04/1987 Inventor: Lin , et al.4689817, Device for generating the audio information of a set of characters Issued on: 08/25/1987 Inventor: Kroon4692941, Real-time text-to-speech conversion system Issued on: 09/08/1987 Inventor: Jacks , et al.4695962, Speaking apparatus having differing speech modes for word and phrase synthesis Issued on: 09/22/1987 Inventor: Goudie4783810, Device for generating the audio information of a set of characters Issued on: 11/08/1988 Inventor: Kroon4783811, Method and apparatus for determining syllable boundaries Issued on: 11/08/1988 Inventor: Fisher , et al.4829580, Text analysis system with letter sequence recognition and speech stress assignment arrangement Issued on: 05/09/1989 Inventor: Church4831654, Apparatus for making and editing dictionary entries in a text to speech conversion system Issued on: 05/16/1989 Inventor: Dick4896359, Speech synthesis system by rule using phonemes as systhesis units Issued on: 01/23/1990 Inventor: Yamamoto, et al.4907279, Pitch frequency generation system in a speech synthesis system Issued on: 03/06/1990 Inventor: Higuchi, et al.4908867, Speech synthesis Issued on: 03/13/1990 Inventor: Silverman4912768, Speech encoding process combining written and spoken message codes Issued on: 03/27/1990 Inventor: Benbassat4964167, Apparatus for generating synthesized voice from text Issued on: 10/16/1990 Inventor: Kunizawa, et al.4979216, Text to speech synthesis system and method using context dependent vowel allophones Issued on: 12/18/1990 Inventor: Malsheen, et al.5040218, Name pronounciation by synthesizer Issued on: 08/13/1991 Inventor: Vitale, et al.5204905, Text-to-speech synthesizer having formant-rule and speech-parameter synthesis modes Issued on: 04/20/1993 Inventor: Mitome5212731, Apparatus for providing sentence-final accents in synthesized american english speech Issued on: 05/18/1993 Inventor: Zimmermann5384893, Method and apparatus for speech synthesis based on prosodic analysis Issued on: 01/24/1995 Inventor: Hutchins5475796, Pitch pattern generation apparatus Issued on: 12/12/1995 Inventor: Iwata5615300, Text-to-speech synthesis with controllable processing time and speech quality Issued on: 03/25/1997 Inventor: Hara, et al.5617507, Speech segment coding and pitch control methods for speech synthesis systems Issued on: 04/01/1997 Inventor: Lee, et al.5636325, Speech synthesis and analysis of dialects Issued on: 06/03/1997 Inventor: Farrett5673362Speech synthesis system in which a plurality of clients and at least one voice synthesizing server are connected to a local area network Issued on: 09/30/1997 Inventor: Matsumoto International ClassG10L 005/02 |