US 6,804,330 · Granted 2004-10-12

The 2004 Patent That Let You Talk to Your Customer Database

Imagine asking your computer questions out loud—like 'Show me all customers in California'—and hearing back a spoken answer instead of reading a screen. This patent covers the technology that lets you control business software using your voice, powered by voice recognition and a speech processor that understands natural language commands.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a system where users interact with customer relationship management (CRM) data entirely through voice. What's protected here is the combination of voice recognition that processes spoken commands, a speech processing server that interprets those commands using grammar rules for natural language, and text-to-speech technology that reads results back to the user. The system generates database queries from voice input and navigates returned data through voice-guided prompts, all without requiring a keyboard or mouse.

Why it matters

This patent represents an early attempt to make business software accessible by voice at a time when most CRM systems required typing. Siebel Systems, a major enterprise software company, filed this in 2002 during the early era of voice interfaces. The patent demonstrates the company's effort to differentiate its CRM platform by adding accessibility features and hands-free interaction—capabilities that became increasingly important as businesses sought to let salespeople and managers access customer data while mobile or multitasking.

Real-world use

A sales representative in a car could speak a query like 'List my accounts with revenue over one million' and hear the system read back matching customer names and details, all without looking at a screen.

Original USPTO abstract

A system and method for providing access to CRM data via a voice interface. In one embodiment, the system includes a voice recognition unit and a speech processing server that work together to enable users to interact with the system using voice commands guided by navigation context sensitive voice prompts, and provide user-requested data in a verbalized format back to the users. Digitized voice waveform data are processed to determine the voice commands of the user. The system also uses a "grammar" that enables users to retrieve data using intuitive natural language speech queries. In response to such a query, a corresponding data query is generated by the system to retrieve one or more data sets corresponding to the query. The user is then enabled to browse the data that are returned through voice command navigation, wherein the system "reads" the data back to the user using text-to-speech (TTS) conversion.

Patent details

Publication number: US 6,804,330
Filing date: 2002-01-04
Grant date: 2004-10-12
Assignee: Siebel Systems, Inc.
Inventor(s): JONES SHANNON, GORMAN RICHARD, AMBROSE JESSE, HARB JOSEPH, HAVEN CHRIS
CPC class: H04M3/4938

View original record on Google Patents →

Want to file your own patent?

If you're designing voice-controlled software for any industry, check our patent scanner to see what voice interface technologies might already be claimed in your space.

Free patentability scan