Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) Amazon has once again paid the price for patent infringement. A federal court in Delaware ruled that Amazon should pay $46.7 million in damages to Nuance Communications's VB Assets because Amazon infringed four patents owned by VB Assets, which were used in Amazon's Echo smart speakers and Alexa voice assistant. VB Assets said it held talks with Amazon in 2017 to discuss patents.

VB Assets, formerly known as VoiceBox Technologies, filed a lawsuit against Amazon in 2019. The company claimed at the time that it had a patent for a round speaker that connects to the Internet and answers questions with a female voice, much like Amazon's Echo speakers and Alexa voice assistants. VB Assets said it had developed a prototype of the product long before Amazon announced its product.

The prototype of VB Assets, called "Cybermind", was shown in a YouTube video. In the video, someone asks a speaker, "computer, what is the schedule of the NBA?" And "computer, what's the weather forecast for Sunday?" Wait for instructions, speakers then answer these questions by looking for answers on the Internet.

According to the lawsuit, VoiceBox developed a voice assistant for Lexus called Alexus, "demonstrating the power of its conversational voice technology." The company argues that the concept of Alexus was made public six months before Amazon launched its Alexa voice assistant. In addition, the founder of VoiceBox is said to have applied natural language processing technology to computer programs since 2001.

The lawsuit added that VoiceBox's team met with Amazon in 2011 to "explore a potential business relationship in which VoiceBox Technologies will provide Amazon with a core 'natural language understanding' service." Echo speakers and Alexa Voice Assistant were launched in 2014.

The Delaware federal court ordered Amazon to pay damages through continuing royalties rather than one-off damages. Although VoiceBox had previously accused Amazon of infringing six patents, the court found that Amazon had infringed only four patents. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment, but it still has time to appeal the ruling.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.