Amazon ordered to pay over 7 billion yen for patent infringement by voice recognition assistant ``Alexa''

Amazon's smart speaker ``Echo'' and its built-in voice recognition assistant ``Alexa'' were ordered to pay $46.7 million (approximately 7 billion yen) for infringing four patents. I did.

Alexa just cost Amazon another $46.7 million | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/alexa-just-cost-amazon-another-46-7-million/

VB Assets (formerly VoiceBox Technologies), a subsidiary of Nuance Communications, has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in Delaware federal court, alleging that Amazon's Echo and Alexa infringe on the company's patents. In the lawsuit, VB Assets claims that it 'invented a circular speaker that could connect to the Internet and respond to voice commands with a robotic female voice before Amazon.'

The case was decided , and the jury ordered Amazon to pay compensation based on the running royalties . This decision follows a jury verdict that Amazon infringed on four of VB Assets' patents. The patents that Amazon was determined to have infringed are related to ``network-coordinated conversation service technology,'' ``technology to provide a conversational voice user interface,'' and ``technology to link advertisements to voice input-based natural language processing.'' . At the time of filing the lawsuit, VB Assets accused Amazon of infringing six of our patents.

VB Assets claims that Amazon was developing prototypes of products similar to Echo and Alexa before they announced them. In fact, the complaint filed in court in 2019 includes a link to a YouTube video that appears to be a reprint of a report on a prototype of the smart speaker 'Cybermind' being developed by VB Assets. Ta. This report was published in 2006 by King 5 News, a local news outlet in Seattle. You can see Cybermind answering questions like 'Please.

NEWS KING5 2006 - YouTube


The founder of VB Assets claims to have started efforts to bring natural language understanding to computer applications in 2001, and the company is developing voice control applications for cars.

According to VB Assets, the company demonstrated its voice recognition assistant 'Alexus' for cars more than half a year before Amazon announced Alexa. VB Assets said of this demonstration, ``We were able to demonstrate the power of interactive voice technology.'' VB Assets also claimed that ``Amazon poached the company's employees in order to plagiarize VB Assets' technology and ideas.''

According to VB Assets, the company first held a meeting with Amazon in 2011 to explore the possibility of developing a business that would provide Amazon with its core technology, natural language understanding services. ”It seems like it was. After that, Amazon announced Echo and Alexa in 2014, and VB Assets reportedly held a patent meeting with Amazon in 2017, but the talks did not go as desired and they ultimately filed a lawsuit. It seems that it has happened.

Technology media Ars Technica has asked Amazon for comment on the lawsuit, but Amazon has not responded at the time of article creation.