ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,770,621, issued on Oct. 20, was assigned to MERCEDES-BENZ GROUP AG (Stuttgart, Germany).

"Method for processing speech inputs and operating device for controlling vehicle functions" was invented by Bianca Mix (Stuttgart, Germany), Florian Staib (Schorndorf, Germany), Fabian Scholler (Kernen, Germany), Stephan Arenswald (Boblingen, Germany), Tobias Blankenhorn (Gartringen, Germany), Edith Kuhn (Sindelfingen, Germany) and Philip Rambowski-Mailhot (Ehningen, Germany).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Speech inputs used to control vehicle functions in a vehicle, having speech recognition and having graphics, assigned to the vehicle functions, ar...