Voice prompting and indexing dictation recorder

Abstract

A method for improving dictation recorders and systems by providing a means to separately and independently record and store and, during any later dictation recording session, separately retrieve and audibly replay multiple dictation-indexing voice-prompt dictation cues, and thus by their successive replaying enable a dictator to be audibly prompted and thereby aided while dictating in conformance with a corresponding list, outline, instruction set, or standard form represented by said voice-prompt dictation cues.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONSNot Applicable.STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENTNot Applicable.BACKGROUND--FIELD OF INVENTIONThis invention relates to personal hand-held dictation recorders, specifically to an improved method for providing cue-and-review indexing and prompting functions during dictation and transcription.BACKGROUND--DESCRIPTION OF RELATED ARTDictation recorders, often also referred to as dictating machines, have appeared in many forms. Early forms were bulky desk units operated by controls located on a cable-attached hand-held microphone. Later manifestations have included hand-held tape recorders (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,227,222 to Sato and Kobayashi, 1980), central dictation systems (e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,936,805 to Bringol, et al., 1976, and 4,041,249 to Matz and Foster, 1977), digital dictation systems (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,179,627 to Sweet, et.al., 1993), and personal computer dictation systems (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,197,05...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

First, since dictation is by nature a repeating start-stop-rewind-play process, dictation recorders require a means to easily facilitate that process.

While many prior-art designs thus benefitted the dictator's cue-and-review processes by making it easier to locate and review specific recorded dictation segments, none of these designs provided assistance to the dictator during the initial dictation of those segments.

None of the prior-art designs provided a tool to assist the dictator in logically framing his or her thoughts and dictating them in the first place in an orderly way.

None of these designs facilitated dictation in conformance with lengthy standardized forms and templates.

All prior-art embedded dictation-index-signal designs are limited to assisting a dictator in post-dictation recording cue and review and to assisting a transcriber in post-dictation transcription.

None of the prior-art designs provide utility for assisting a dictator beforehand with the organization or structure of the material or content to be dictated.

None of the prior-art designs provide any means to prompt the dictator beforehand with the next dictation segment topic when dictating in conformance with standardized forms and templates.

A dictator may refer to printed copies of these forms and templates during dictation, but keeping up with and using them when out of the office is difficult.

Dictating without the printed forms or templates is also subject to errors and omissions, especially when the templates change frequently or when the dictator must dictate to several different ones.

Further, printed forms and templates are difficult to personalize.

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