Appeal No. 2000-1250
Application No. 08/662,077 Page 2
BACKGROUND
Appellants’ invention relates to a method and apparatus for
controlling digital communications switching equipment. An
understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of
exemplary claims 1 and 11, which are reproduced as follows:
1. A method of controlling a plurality of different high
speed digital telecommunications switches, each of which responds
to a different set of native messages, with a single messaging
protocol, said method comprising:
a) determining a global set of switch functions to be
controlled;
b) categorizing at least some switch functions into first
subsets of the global set;
c) defining a set of generic messages for each first subset
of switch functions;
d) providing a generic message interpreter of each different
switch of the plurality of different high speed digital
telecommunications switches to interpret generic messages and
native switch messages;
e) coupling a first generic message interpreter to a first
respective switch; and
f) coupling the first generic message interpreter to a
source of generic messages, wherein messages from the source of
generic messages are interpreted by the first generic message
interpreter to control the first switch with native switch
messages.
11. An apparatus for controlling a plurality of different
high speed digital telecommunications switches, each of which
responds to a different set of native messages, with a single
messaging protocol, said apparatus comprising:
a) at least one man/machine interface (MMI) agent;
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Last modified: November 3, 2007