US, Australia Issue Patents on Sonde’s Voice-analysis Technology for Diagnosing Diseases

The United States and Australia have issued patents on Sonde Health‘s voice-analysis technology for diagnosing and monitoring multiple sclerosis and other diseases that affect speech.

Sonde, which has dubbed its invention vocal biomarker technology, said the U.S. patent is  9,936,914 and the Australian one 2014374349.

Both patents cover Sonde’s technology for extracting acoustic features from specific portions of speech to diagnose and track physical or mental illness. The American patent runs through 2032 and the Australian patent through 2034.

In addition to MS, the technology has the potential to detect Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and major depressive disorder, Sonde said.

“These newly issued patents represent, to the best of our knowledge, the only coverage for unique classes of vocal biomarkers that demonstrate enhanced vocal analysis performance and accurate assessment of a broad range of physical and psychological conditions,” Jim Harper, Sonde’s chief operating officer, said in a press release.

“Issuance of these patents further strengthens our leading intellectual property portfolio in the emerging field of acoustic voice analysis and validates our novel technology platform for the assessment and detection of various medical conditions,” he added.

The technology’s ability to detect neurophysiological disorders has been evaluated in more than 3,000 people, Sonde said.

It enables voice-interactive devices such as smartphones to spot subtle voice changes that can translate into brain, muscle, and respiratory measurements for assessing health conditions.

The company is doing research to expand its voice-based technology to detecting conditions such as Alzheimer’s, and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. The bottom line, the company said, is that its Vocal Biomarker program has the potential to diagnose and monitor diseases with devices that most people already own.

Sonde has other issued and pending patents in its intellectual property portfolio of methods assessing human speech. The company’s ultimate goal is to change the way physical and mental health is diagnosed, monitored, and managed.