In December and January, Google filed petitions for inter partes review (IPR) of the three speech recognition patents that IPA Technologies Inc. has been litigating since October 2016. Weeks later, the Quarterhill Inc. subsidiary has sued Alphabet (Google) (1:18-cv-00318) in district court. The new complaint asserts those same three patents, as well as three more from the NPE’s family of nine, with infringement allegations focusing on Google Assistant, including its interoperation with Google Search (and Google Feed/Now). IPA pleads that Google Assistant is “enabled” for a range of devices, including “phones, speakers, watches, laptops, televisions, automobiles, and other smart displays” either directly provided by Google or made compatible by third parties (e.g., “Philips Hue lights, Wemo electronics control systems, LG smart appliances”) by using identified tools Google Actions, Dialogflow, Cloud Natural Language and Firebase.