MUMBAI: Shazam the mobile discovery company has reacquired the audio recognition technology and the related patents that it sold to Broadcast Music Inc in 2005.

Shazam originally sold its intellectual property rights to BMI to fund the technology's development. The new agreement will allow Shazam to expand its services and also reinstate its intellectual property ownership.

Under the agreement, BMI will continue its access to the service in the business-to-business space and will also become a shareholder in the company. Shazam and BMI will work together on co-marketing programs and new service offerings for the BMI community.

BMI president and CEO Del Bryant said, "We are thrilled to enter into a new chapter in our long-term relationship with Shazam. This agreement will allow Shazam to build on its tremendous success in creating consumer-facing services while at the same time allowing BMI to continue to deliver commercial recognition services for our customers through a perpetual, worldwide license, and to benefit from ongoing technology collaboration with Shazam."

Speaking on the reinstate of its IP ownership Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher said, Shazam has seen fantastic growth in the last year, adding more than 1.5 million new people every week, with the total number of Shazamers around the globe now exceeding 165 million. This is the optimal time to repurchase the technology and patents so that we can continue to add to and protect our growing portfolio which will, in turn, allow Shazam to broaden our range of products, further developing Shazam for TV and other innovative offerings."

Shazam is headquartered in London with offices in Palo Alto, New York, Los Angeles and Seoul. The official app is available on iOS, Android, Java, BlackBerry, Windows, Symbian and all other major platforms and in more than 30 languages and 200 countries around the world.