Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg through Getty Images
A Delaware federal courtroom has ordered Amazon to pay $46.7 million for infringing on 4 patents belonging to VB Assets with Amazon’s Echo sensible audio system and Alexa digital assistant. A lawsuit from Nuance Communications-owned VB Assets, beforehand generally known as VoiceField Technologies, claimed to have already invented a round speaker that would connect with the online and reply voice-dictated prompts with a feminine, robotic voice.
Wednesday’s judgment [PDF], initially reported by Reuters, orders Amazon to pay the sum through working royalty slightly than a lump sum. The ruling follows a jury verdict [PDF] discovering that Amazon infringed upon 4 of VoiceField’s patents. The patents relate to offering network-coordinated conversational providers, a conversational voice consumer interface, and tying ads to pure language processing of voice-based enter. VB Assets initially accused Amazon of infringing on six of its patents.
Amazon nonetheless has time to attraction the judgment, and VoiceField has time to hunt reimbursement for associated prices.
Patent infringement claims
VoiceField claimed that it developed a prototype of one thing just like Echo and Alexa lengthy earlier than Amazon’s merchandise have been introduced. In reality, its lawsuit, filed in 2019 [PDFs], included a hyperlink to a video on YouTube showing to be a information report about VoiceField’s “Cybermind” prototype. The video seemingly exhibits a report from Seattle’s King 5 News from 2006, demoing somebody asking a speaker questions like, “Computer, what’s the NBA schedule?” and “Computer, what’s the forecast for Sunday?” in addition to prompts, comparable to “Computer, discover me a very good recipe for chocolate cheesecake.” A voice from the speaker responds to the questions or prompts, reportedly by pulling solutions from the Internet or the linked pc.
You can try the cited video and the prototype in motion under:
Seattle’s King 5 News in 2006.
The lawsuit claimed VoiceField’s founders started work on bringing pure language understanding to pc purposes in 2001. Headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, VoiceField has made voice-controlled apps for TomTom and different GPS manufacturers and vehicles, Reuters famous.
VoiceField’s lawsuit claimed VoiceField demoed a voice assistant for Lexus vehicles known as Alexus “that showcased the ability of its conversational Voice know-how.” The lawsuit claimed that the “’Alexus’ idea was launched to the general public greater than six months earlier than Amazon introduced ‘Alexa.'”
Like different patent circumstances in opposition to tech giants, the lawsuit additionally claimed that Amazon invited VoiceField workers into conferences about VoiceField’s applied sciences, solely to finish up ripping off the corporate’s concepts and poaching workers. VoiceField’s lawsuit claimed VoiceField first met with Amazon in 2011 “to discover a possible enterprise relationship the place VoiceField Technologies would offer core [natural language understanding] providers to Amazon.” Amazon introduced the Amazon Echo and Alexa in 2014. VoiceField additionally claimed to have had conferences about its patents with Amazon in 2017.
Amazon did not reply to Ars Technica’s request for remark.
Another street bump for Alexa
The judgment handed down this week contrasts a 2021 ruling in a Delaware federal courtroom discovering that Alexa doesn’t infringe upon patents by IPA Technologies Inc., as Reuters reported. While not almost as sizeable a judgment as we have seen in different latest patent circumstances and a drop within the bucket by way of Amazon’s total income, the ruling in opposition to Amazon comes at an inconvenient time of uncertainty and flux for its voice assistant.
At the top of 2022, Business Insider reported that Alexa was poised to lose Amazon $10 billion that 12 months. Amazon by no means confirmed that determine, however there is not any denying that voice assistant peddlers have been desperately brainstorming methods to attempt to improve the quantity of income such applied sciences generate. Amazon’s long-time units head, David Limp, can also be leaving the corporate this 12 months.
Hoping to show issues round, Amazon in September revealed its generative AI Alexa ambitions and hopes that the voice assistant will ultimately grow to be so superior and useful that prospects will likely be prepared to pay a subscription payment to make use of its most spectacular options. However, Amazon is years away from making that concept viable.