V-ENABLE Leads Market with Newly-Awarded Patent
for Mobile Voice Search Technology
San Diego, CA — June 12, 2006 — V-ENABLE, Inc., the worldwide leader in delivering voice- and text-based (multi-modal) mobile search solutions, has been granted Patent #7,054,818 by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The grant, with 45 total claims approved, reinforces V-ENABLE's industry leadership; the company is the first in the mobile sector to receive a mobile voice search technology patent.
V-ENABLE's invention relates to techniques for requesting and receiving content and information using voice and/or text interfaces over mobile data networks for portable devices such as mobile phones. This patent provides V-ENABLE with a market advantage for voice-enabling any application due to its scope; it covers the process for creating applications and user interfaces that integrate voice inputs/outputs with text.
"We are very excited to receive the industry's first patent on developing and creating a voice-enabled mobile user interface, which can be applied toward mobile search, directory assistance, navigation applications and more," said Dipanshu Sharma, VENABLE's co-CEO and CTO. "All carriers are focused on improving the user experience; in fact, voice search is required by many carriers today. Our patent gives us significant advantages over new players in the market that are trying to play catch up with technology we invented over five years ago."
V-ENABLE's platform enables data to be requested and received using voice mode, visual mode (text), or a combination of both. With V-ENABLE's technology, any content available to end-users from their wireless carriers is accessible by both voice and text search, including - but not limited to - music, ringtones, movie listings, weather, games, wallpaper, directory assistance and maps.
The patent for a Multimodal Information Retrieval System is expected to help VENABLE continue its headway in the mobile search market, which Piper Jaffray projects will grow to $11 billion by 2008. In addition, a recent survey by voice recognition company Nuance Communications, reports strong consumer interest in voice services on a mobile phone; more than 75 percent of respondents expressed interest in using speech commands to facilitate dialing and improve access to the advanced features of mobile phones.
Authored by Chandra Kholia, chief architect; Sunil Kumar, VP technology solutions; and Sharma the patent is one in a series V-ENABLE has filed over the past several years in its string of first-to-market advancements in the mobile search space.
About V-ENABLE
V-ENABLE is the leading provider of mobile search solutions optimized for accessing and presenting content and information over mobile networks. V-ENABLE was founded by wireless experts from Nokia, Motorola, PacketVideo and Cisco. Its patented mobile voice search technology allows mobile users to search using their voice and receive personalized content and information in a visual format on their mobile phone. The VENABLE mobile voice search interface software is a unique client-server solution, available for carriers, application developers and publishers using BREW, JAVA, SYMBIAN, WAP, xHTML platforms.
Founded in 2001, V-ENABLE is headquartered in San Diego, CA. Mobile voice search applications powered by V-ENABLE technology are currently available from Verizon Wireless, ALLTEL, U.S. Cellular and Leap Communications. For more information, visit www.V-ENABLE.com.
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Contacts:
Katie Eakins / Andy Oliver
LEWIS PR for V-ENABLE
619-516-2559
v-enable@lewispr.com