Banter Granted Patent for Key Function of Natural Language Technology; Innovation Covered by Patent Found in Flagship Product, Banter Server.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

Banter, Inc., the leading provider of technology that understands people, today announced that it received approval of a patent for a component of its natural language technology that greatly increases the speed and efficiency of Global 2000 corporations' customer service operations.

The patent -- U.S. patent number 6,408,277 granted to Banter on June 18 -- covers Banter's system and method to automatically prioritize tasks, enabling companies to scale their ability to better handle large volumes of e-mail, improve customer service quality and decrease costs.

The patented task prioritization system is part of Banter's industry-leading infrastructure technology that understands informal written communication and enables applications to automate the appropriate action such as responding, routing, prioritizing, categorizing and filtering.

Global 2000 customer service organizations can implement Banter's patented technology through Banter Server, an infrastructure platform for easy and fast deployment; Banter Workbench, a toolset for text mining, reporting and knowledge base creation; and Banter RME, an embeddable version of Banter's core technology.

Used by companies like Siebel, Peregrine, Wells Fargo and Royal Bank of Canada, Banter's technology improves quality while lowering the cost of customer service, as consumers use a self-service Web site, Web forms or e-mail to receive quick and accurate answers to their questions.

Going beyond the customer service organization, Banter solutions enable enterprises to deal with the growing epidemic of e-mail overload. Banter has been at the forefront of addressing this problem by extending its capabilities found in customer service and CRM applications to managing corporate e-mail.

"This patent is another indication of Banter's leadership and innovation in Web self-service and smart e-mail management markets," said Yoram Nelken, chairman and chief technology officer of Banter. "Enterprises are realizing that current methods of managing e-mail are insufficient to deal with the vast explosion of written communication and that smarter, adaptive mechanisms must be put in place."

Banter's technology, that understands informal written communication, is also used to mine e-mail streams, block inappropriate messages, block spam or assure compliance with regulations and rules.

About Banter

Banter provides technology that understands people. Enterprise organizations can manage e-mail flows, enforce policies, improve customer service quality and lower customer contact overhead by using Banter's infrastructure technology to accurately understand written communication and enable appropriate response or action. Banter's core technology is Banter RME, which is the only linguistic and statistical engine that teaches itself to be more accurate over time without requiring costly human intervention. Banter's technology is being used by the customer service operations of companies like Royal Bank of Canada, Wells Fargo, VeriSign, ABN AMRO, Nintendo, and others. Banter also partners with software leaders Siebel, Peregrine, Avaya and many others. For more information about how Banter can help your business, please visit the company's website at http://www.banter.com or call toll free 1-877/992-2683.