Alexa just cost Amazon another $46.7 million

"Alexus" voice assistant demoed 6 months before Alexa reveal, patent lawsuit said.

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[jonsmirl]

I still don't understand how they lose that much. Losing millions/hundreds of millions, I can understand if there is no clear way to make money but the devices are being sold at cost. But 10 billion? A year?

Many, many projects in Amazon Devices never shipped. It is $10B total, not $10B/yr. It is also not clear what was lumped into that $10B. I suspect all of their AI research is in the lump. The cost of acquiring Ring, Blink, Eero, Lab126, etc is in that lump too. Don't forget the FirePhone, how much did that waste?

But have they really lost the $10B? What has all of this effort done to the Amazon stock price? I suspect the stock has gone up far more because of this than the $10B they spent.

 

[gnasher729]

But have they really lost the $10B? What has all of this effort done to the Amazon stock price? I suspect the stock has gone up far more because of this than the $10B they spent.

Stock price indicates what the public thinks about the value of the company. It doesn’t indicate what the company is worth.

 

[morlamweb]

It would seem to me that with such vague claims that Startrek TNG would qualify as prior art since they show a computer voice assistant responding to similar prompts nearly 20 years before.

The Star Trek computer was fictional. VoiceBox tech actually built a functional prototype.

 

[junktrunk]

Edit: nevermind

 

[Chuckstar]

Many, many projects in Amazon Devices never shipped. It is $10B total, not $10B/yr. It is also not clear what was lumped into that $10B. I suspect all of their AI research is in the lump. The cost of acquiring Ring, Blink, Eero, Lab126, etc is in that lump too. Don't forget the FirePhone, how much did that waste?

But have they really lost the $10B? What has all of this effort done to the Amazon stock price? I suspect the stock has gone up far more because of this than the $10B they spent.

Stock price going up doesn’t magically replace negative income.

 

[SplatMan_DK]

All patents should have an expiration. 5 years for software, 10 years for hardware.

I agree they should expire sooner, but your timeframe is too short. For a small player, actually capitalising on a novel invention on a global scale can be a huge task.

The innovation work can be massive as well, costing millions and millions of dollars. If you make the timeframe too short it disincentives expensive innovation and results in a shift towards smaller short-term projects.

 

[SplatMan_DK]

Stock price going up doesn’t magically replace negative income.

Shure it does.

Regards

- Investors

 

[mikeschr]

The Star Trek computer was fictional. VoiceBox tech actually built a functional prototype.

Fine, but as I understand it you have to copy a method of doing something in order to violate a patent.
Simply releasing something that does the same thing doesn't cut it, unless there's something I'm missing. I would have liked to see a description of the methodology that Amazon copied.

 

[Frosty Grin]

Alexus, play Despacito.

 

[Chuckstar]

I agree they should expire sooner, but your timeframe is too short. For a small player, actually capitalising on a novel invention on a global scale can be a huge task.

The innovation work can be massive as well, costing millions and millions of dollars. If you make the timeframe too short it disincentives expensive innovation and results in a shift towards smaller short-term projects.

If 5-10 years is too short and 20 years is too long, aren’t you kind of starting to just thread the needle?

 

[Chuckstar]

Fine, but as I understand it you have to copy a method of doing something in order to violate a patent.
Simply releasing something that does the same thing doesn't cut it, unless there's something I'm missing. I would have liked to see a description of the methodology that Amazon copied.

And if someone describes an idea in the format that methods get described in patents, and the PTO approves it, voila… a patented idea. (Unfortunately)

 

[theghostdeejay]

Any craft designed to move at high speed through an atmosphere is likely to end up resembling a penis to some degree. There are a limited number of efficient engineering solutions to any particular problem.

Memo to self... Read all comments before posting similar to previous posters....

 

[San Diego Dude]

People in here griping about patent trolls should watch the video from 2006. That's friggen Alexa and I'm kinda shocked how coherent it was all the way back then. these guys had a working prototype and were in active talks with Amazon to license this before Amazon stole the concept and ran with it. I'm on voicebox's side on this one.

 

[Emon]

Software patents should be banned. Absolutely nothing but litigation fodder. Nothing of real value would be lost if we just destroyed them. The last two companies I worked for had a legal team completely dedicated to creatively quizzing devs to dream up random software patents. Such bullshit.

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, this should be a popular position around here. The EU outright banned software patents, they're not even a thing anymore.

Copyright is the appropriate method of IP protection for software, at least under the current system.

I'm not saying they're patent trolls because they're clearly not and Amazon clearly intended to not play fair. But it's a valid point that software patents do far more harm than good.

 

[terrydactyl]

Hoping to turn things around, Amazon in September revealed its generative AI Alexa ambitions and hopes that the voice assistant will eventually become so advanced and helpful that customers will be willing to pay a subscription fee to use its most impressive features.

So the original idea behind Alexa was to get people to buy things by ordering Alexa to get it. Except people didn't like buying things that way. To quote:

Not many people want to trust an AI with spending their money or buying an item without seeing [it]

But now customers are supposed to be willing to pay for the privilege?

 

[ChicagoCurmudgeon]

Which is why all software patents should be required to include the implementing code:
1. To demonstrate the invention actually exists;
2. To ensure competitors can develop other methods without fear of being sued; and
3. To ensure everyone can implement the method once the patent protection expires.

1. Long ago models of inventions were required. That is no longer required for any invention. Obviously for a software invention, full code would be basically like the old mechanical models.
2. Lawsuits are determined by comparing the claims to the accused device. Looking at code would be of minimal help. This isn't copyright.
3. The disclosure in the patent must enable a person of ordinary skill in the art to practice the invention or the patent isn't valid. But it doesn't require that the disclosure enable a dunce that knows how to operate a compiler practice it, which is what you are asking for.

We really don't need 10,000 page patents. They are bad enough to read as is.

 

[Haravikk]

Wait a minute, how wasn't this patent just torn to shreds?

They claim to have started working on this in 2001, but my Performa 6300 from the 90's (I got it in '96 iirc) could do voice recognition. Sure it required a bit more work to set it up, but the capability was already there long before they could have filed the patents.

This video seems like it's from 2006, yet it's pretending like computers couldn't already do this, or hadn't been doing it in science fiction for decades already? How can you use that as proof?

As much as I hate Amazon, I can't believe they couldn't get this patent invalidated somehow? Putting an existing capability in a smaller box (and not actually that much smaller, judging by that video) surely can't be novel enough to be defensible?

Update: So apparently the good people of Ars have objections to the concept of prior art? The very thing that patent disputes are about? It'd be nice if someone would elaborate what they disagree with instead of hiding behind anonymity.

 

[zogus]

Yeah... let alone 60s show.

Of all the examples you could have picked from old movies, you chose that one? The one where the computer didn't respond to Scotty's "Hello, computer"?

 

[metavirus]

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, this should be a popular position around here. The EU outright banned software patents, they're not even a thing anymore.

Copyright is the appropriate method of IP protection for software, at least under the current system.

I'm not saying they're patent trolls because they're clearly not and Amazon clearly intended to not play fair. But it's a valid point that software patents do far more harm than good.

Amen. I too was surprised to find that there’s a cadre of software patent boosters around here. I wouldn’t have thought that a typical “Method for things doing obvious things on a computer because software” patents would get much good press around here. (And for those who would quibble: No, that pretty much IS 99.9% of all software patents in the US.)

 

[davidsco27]

Spoiler: Amazon, and other Millennial Tech morons, I will NEVER pay you for a subscription

 

[fellow human]

Of all the examples you could have picked from old movies, you chose that one? The one where the computer didn't respond to Scotty's "Hello, computer"?

Tbf he was taking to a little box with a button

 

[NetMage]

A patent requires showing how it would actually work. The idea of having a computer voice assistant is not patentable. A particular method for making a computer respond to voice commands is.

You might want to read more closely - the claim quoted seems like someone watched Star Trek wrote a patent application.

 

[jballou]

Compromise settlement, let consumers trade in these dumb 2023 devices for something that works at the 2006 level?

It’s like they stole it, but also made it so, so terrible.

 

[durindana]

Kind of a quibble, but it’s not “infringing on.” It’s just “infringe”

 

[graylshaped]

Tbf he was taking to a little box with a button

AKA a computer mouse, as I recall.

 

[FlyingGoat]

A patent requires showing how it would actually work. The idea of having a computer voice assistant is not patentable. A particular method for making a computer respond to voice commands is.

I don't know the details of the specific lawsuit. But it's been my impression that while algorithm-related patents often say "a method of doing foo", the owners of such patents seem to sue over products that engage in "any method of doing foo", regardless of what's going on in the backend, and win those lawsuits.

 

[Claverhouse]

I don’t care so much for the patents (technology was inevitable going there), but inviting a company in, investigating their product, then poaching employees and copying the tech is predatory behavior that should be smacked down.

Microsoft should sue as prior art.

 

[AlexiValerii]

Nuance is the maker of Dragon Naturally speaking and has been around since at least 1997. (First version release of Naturally speaking)

As a dyslexic I have used it (trained to my voice) for dictation since early childhood.

 

[cpkennit]

This might be a smarter strategy when patent trolling, go for smaller damages. When you get awarded huge damages of course the targeted company is going to appeal forever and bring counter suits. At $46M Amazon has to now decide if it is worth the effort and expense to appeal.

My position is that this technology is too basic to allow general patents. An Alexa is just a mic and speaker with Internet access back to Amazon. All of the smarts are in the cloud. You can turn a $2 ESP32 board into an Alexa front end if your really want to. So if you were to patent the actual technology invention here, it would be the cloud software, not the Alexa hardware.

why so heavily downvoted? makes all the right points

 

[gkorper]

Nuance is the maker of Dragon Naturally speaking and has been around since at least 1997. (First version release of Naturally speaking)

As a dyslexic I have used it (trained to my voice) for dictation since early childhood.

Actually Nuance bought the companies that developed most of that technology. It had been around for nearly a decade before that. I loved demonstrating playing Tetris in 1989 using voice control. The more panicked I got the harder it was for Voice Navigator to understand, left, right and, spin

Admittedly back then voice recognition required user specific voice training and you had to map the actions yourself which it took based on what it recognized.

Regardless the judgement is a result of a broken patent system.

 

[davey_w]

I like how they barely changed her name

 

[AHvivere]

Can we get to the dystopian future where corporations just murder inferior and problematic ones like this shitter patent troll? If you don't have a viable marketed product, game over, fuck off, go drown in your pool. I'm not an Amazon fan at all and I think Bezos is a trashcan, but patents need to be like RF spectrum, if you don't use it, you lose it. Having the best idea in the world that you don't actually utilize doesn't fucking matter.... Look at the assholes with the "Cold Fusion" patents... It doesn't fucking exist, and it's already patented.

Can we have a rogue black hole eat the system or something please.

 

[notrightaway]

I'm wondering how hard Amazon tried in this case.

I'm saying "not very," because if the patent claim failed, VB would go after the other claim, which is...

Plus, hiring away staff is not illegal as long as they don't implement anything that is documented in your patents.

... that the staff hired from VB did indeed implement these patents for Amazon. However VB have not claimed for that.

So in short, VB went for the patents directly as a first move and Amazon let them have it because there is other shit to do with those employees or wider Alexa which Amazon do not want to draw attention to. VB may have known that or may just have got lucky.

 

[notrightaway]

If 5-10 years is too short and 20 years is too long, aren’t you kind of starting to just thread the needle?

Bold of everyone here to assume technology evolves at the same pace in all markets, too.

 

[Marclev]

It would seem to me that with such vague claims that Startrek TNG would qualify as prior art since they show a computer voice assistant responding to similar prompts nearly 20 years before.

Yes, but Amazon didn't invite the Enterprise's engineers in for a cup of tea and offer them a job to recreate the patented bridge computer system as everyone's favourite kitchen timer.

 

[clownb456]

Alexa is hot garbage, and so is Amazon.

 

[Marclev]

Of all the examples you could have picked from old movies, you chose that one? The one where the computer didn't respond to Scotty's "Hello, computer"?

Siri just couldn't understand his accent.

 

[faultedgeologist]

Gene Rodenberry family sues VoiceBox for using their future technology where you say "Computer, tell me this..." Hmmm...
I don't think VoiceBox should get so much unless they had "Computer, make fart noises!" At least half of the Alexa requests must be this judging from my family! #AlexaFart

 

[Abulia]

One year my wife and I were wrapping presents and ran low on Scotch tape. Asked Alexa to “order some Scotch tape.” Like 2 days later, sure enough it arrived!

It was a 10 pack of tape refills. To this day we’re still using those refills.

Never ordered anything via Alexa since then.

 

[Maddog35]

Patient technology is such a scam only Beniifit the lawyers.