Apple's Siri latest target in string of natural language patent lawsuits
One-man company Word to Info on Friday expanded a string of patent lawsuits over natural language processing technology -- active cases involve Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Nuance -- to include Apple, taking specific aim at the tech titan's Siri virtual assistant.
Filed in the patent holder-friendly Eastern Texas District Court, Word to Info's suit alleges infringement of seven patents detailing methods of natural language processing. The company asserted the same series of patents against a number of tech industry giants marketing their own voice recognition and virtual assistant solutions.
Specifically, Word to Info is leveraging U.S. Patent Nos. 5,715,468, 6,138,087, 6,609,091, 7,349,840, 7,873,509, 8,326,603 and 8,688,436 in its case against Apple. The IP string covering methods of interpreting natural language input dates back to 1998, when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted the '468 property to inventor and Word to Info director Robert Budzinski.
Word to Info claims Apple has knowledge of at least one of the patents-in-suit, which was cited "at least 65 times" in various Apple IP. Such listings include U.S. Patent Nos. 8,713,119, 8,903,716 and 9,548,050, each relating to personalized virtual assistants with contextual language processing capabilities.
For example, the '050 patent describes techniques of creating a virtual assistant that can engage with a user in an "integrated, conversational manner using natural language dialog." Prior knowledge of the patent or patents could prove willful infringement on Apple's part.
Apple debuted Siri alongside iPhone 4S in 2011. Initially based on Nuance voice recognition and natural language processing technology, Siri in its most recent iterations is powered by Apple's in-house engines. Less rigid than legacy rulesets, the latest software relies on cutting-edge artificial intelligence and deep neural networks developed by Apple engineers, some of whom were poached from Nuance.
Budzinski and Word to Info has been on the hunt over the past few months, using the same batch of patents in separate cases targeting Amazon's Alexa, Google's Knowledge Graph, Microsoft's Cortana and Nuance's LinkBase software. Nuance was the first to see action in a complaint filed against the company's software and services in January.
Very little is known about Word to Info, though it seems the firm is a non-practicing entity solely reliant on Budzinski's owned properties. A number of business tracking websites list the Texas entity as a personal services company founded in 2013 under the "Photographer, Still or Video" category. Tax documents show Word to Info operates at an address that appears to be Budzinski's house.
Complaints lodged in each of the active cases do not mention whether Word to Info attempted to license its patented technology to the defendants prior to litigation.
The suit arrives just one month before Apple is expected to release iOS 11 with enhanced Siri functionality. In the next-generation operating system, Apple's virtual assistant benefits from a revamped backend that boasts more natural sounding responses and hooks into advanced features like language translations.
Word to Info seeks unspecified damages and reimbursement of attorney fees in its case against Apple.
Filed in the patent holder-friendly Eastern Texas District Court, Word to Info's suit alleges infringement of seven patents detailing methods of natural language processing. The company asserted the same series of patents against a number of tech industry giants marketing their own voice recognition and virtual assistant solutions.
Specifically, Word to Info is leveraging U.S. Patent Nos. 5,715,468, 6,138,087, 6,609,091, 7,349,840, 7,873,509, 8,326,603 and 8,688,436 in its case against Apple. The IP string covering methods of interpreting natural language input dates back to 1998, when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted the '468 property to inventor and Word to Info director Robert Budzinski.
Word to Info claims Apple has knowledge of at least one of the patents-in-suit, which was cited "at least 65 times" in various Apple IP. Such listings include U.S. Patent Nos. 8,713,119, 8,903,716 and 9,548,050, each relating to personalized virtual assistants with contextual language processing capabilities.
For example, the '050 patent describes techniques of creating a virtual assistant that can engage with a user in an "integrated, conversational manner using natural language dialog." Prior knowledge of the patent or patents could prove willful infringement on Apple's part.
Apple debuted Siri alongside iPhone 4S in 2011. Initially based on Nuance voice recognition and natural language processing technology, Siri in its most recent iterations is powered by Apple's in-house engines. Less rigid than legacy rulesets, the latest software relies on cutting-edge artificial intelligence and deep neural networks developed by Apple engineers, some of whom were poached from Nuance.
Budzinski and Word to Info has been on the hunt over the past few months, using the same batch of patents in separate cases targeting Amazon's Alexa, Google's Knowledge Graph, Microsoft's Cortana and Nuance's LinkBase software. Nuance was the first to see action in a complaint filed against the company's software and services in January.
Very little is known about Word to Info, though it seems the firm is a non-practicing entity solely reliant on Budzinski's owned properties. A number of business tracking websites list the Texas entity as a personal services company founded in 2013 under the "Photographer, Still or Video" category. Tax documents show Word to Info operates at an address that appears to be Budzinski's house.
Complaints lodged in each of the active cases do not mention whether Word to Info attempted to license its patented technology to the defendants prior to litigation.
The suit arrives just one month before Apple is expected to release iOS 11 with enhanced Siri functionality. In the next-generation operating system, Apple's virtual assistant benefits from a revamped backend that boasts more natural sounding responses and hooks into advanced features like language translations.
Word to Info seeks unspecified damages and reimbursement of attorney fees in its case against Apple.
Word to Info Suit by Mikey Campbell on Scribd
Comments
So basically east Texas judicial district is the Delaware of law.
Also interesting:
The patent is from 1998.
The movie 2001: A Space Odyssey was released in 1968. What part of 'obvious' or 'prior art' does Budzinski not understand?
Software patents are overreaching and lame.
The reason this is as hard fight is the face this guy has no income or product the Nuance cannot counter sue to make it all go away. I guess this guy figured his time is running out and this is his last chance to cash in.
The problem comes when the numbskulls at the USPTO grant overly broad patents. These effectively block anyone else from working in the same area without infringing these broad patents.
There are many cases that have ended up with the original patent being invalidated.
If Apple, MS , Amazon etc were smart they'd file a gazillion motions to combine the cases and then take it to higher courts to get his patents invalidated.
Voice Recognition has been around for several decades and not just in Movies. The validity of his case depends upon the wording of his patent. From my limited experience one-man-band patents tend to go for overly broad methods. These are just waiting to be shot down in flames.
There may or may not be infringement, but knowledge of an inventive step in someone's research, a published patent applications or issued patents is both advisable and perfectly legal. It only matters if you have somehow actually infringed issued patents. Your summary doesn't indicate any evidence of that.
Yes, citing prior art usually required. You want to show how your invention doesn't infringe.
It's not typical that patents "effectively block" others from inventing things. Can't think of any invention that has not reached the world simply because of another patent.
There are some rare cases of patents being invalidated. Several hundred thousand of patent applications, a few hundred thousand issued patents per year. Challenges are way up, but invalidation is rare.
"...techniques of creating a virtual assistant that can engage with a user in an "integrated, conversational manner using natural language dialog."
It's the techniques that are entitled to a patent, not the general idea. Otherwise, can I patent:
"techniques for creating a virtual assistant that can read people's minds"?
"techniques for creating a virtual assistant that can automatically and aurally translate one language to another"?
"enable transportation via a flying car"
"transport people though the air from one location to another in less than one second"?
"enable the viewing of data by reading a screen display"?
"a device that enables a human to fly like a drone"?
Etc.
More importantly to your point, that language is from the abstract. The abstract doesn't fully describe what is actually patented. The claims in that patent are more specific and include numerous elements, all of which would need to be present for infringement to occur. Or, those elements would all need to be present in prior art or obvious based on prior art in order for prior art to preclude the issuance of the patent or provide a basis for invalidating it.
The description isn't what gets the patent. The claims are what set out what is covered by the patent. The claims for that patent (i.e. the '050 patent) - even the independent claims - are made up of quite a few elements.
Something would not be infringing the patent just because it did what's in that description. It would have to contain all of the elements listed in a given claim.