ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,360,661, issued on July 15.
"Speech input to user interface controls" was invented by Cory Ernest Sanoy (Calgary, Canada).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Traditional buttons or other controls on a touchscreen are limited to activation by touch, and require the touch to be at a specific location on the touchscreen. Herein, these controls are extended so that they can be additionally activated by voice, without the need to touch them. These extended, listening controls work in either a touch mode or a listening mode to fulfill the same functions irrespectively of how they are activated. The user may control when the device enters and exits t...