V-ENABLE has been granted Patent #7,054,818 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In the grant, 45 total claims have been approved. 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. Authored by Chandra Kholia, chief architect; Sunil Kumar, VP technology solutions; and Dipanshu Sharma, V-ENABLE's co-CEO and CTO, the patent is one in a series V-ENABLE has filed over the past several years.

"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 Sharma. "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 content such as music, weather, directory assistance and maps.

The patent for a Multimodal Information Retrieval System is expected to help V-ENABLE continue its headway in the mobile search market, which Piper Jaffray projects will grow to $11 billion by 2008. A recent survey by voice recognition company Nuance Communications reports strong consumer interest in voice services on a mobile phone; more than 75% of respondents expressed interest in using speech commands to facilitate dialing and improve access to the advanced features of mobile phones.