Patent ID: 7398209

Claim:
A method responsive to a user generated natural language speech utterance, comprising: receiving the user generated natural language speech utterance, the received user utterance containing at least one request; maintaining a dynamic set of prior probabilities or fuzzy possibilities usable at each stage of processing the received user utterance; recognizing words and phrases contained in the received utterance using information in one or more dictionary and phrase tables; parsing the recognized words and phrases to determine a meaning of the utterance, wherein determining the meaning includes determining a context for the at least one request contained in the utterance based on one or more keywords contained in the recognized words and phrases; selecting at least one domain agent based on the determined meaning, the selected domain agent being an autonomous executable that receives, processes, and responds to requests associated with the determined context; formulating the at least one request contained in the utterance in accordance with a grammar used by the selected domain agent to process requests associated with the determined context; invoking the selected domain agent to process the formulated request; and presenting results of the processed request to the user, the presented results generated as a result of the invoked domain agent processing the formulated request.