Dialect, LLC has expanded its sole litigation campaign, launched in February 2023 with a suit against Samsung, with a suit against Bank of America (2:24-cv-00207) in the Eastern District of Texas. The five asserted patents, each originating with Voicebox Technologies, are broadly directed to processing and responding to “natural language” inputs. Bank of America is accused of infringement through the provision of the Erica “virtual financial assistant” and related mobile app, with features related to speech recognition and natural language processing at issue.

Amazon (1:23-cv-00581) is the latest defendant to be added to the litigation campaign that Dialect, LLC launched in February 2023 with a suit against Samsung, which Dialect followed with a case against Alphabet (Google) just two months later. In the new Eastern District of Virginia complaint, the plaintiff asserts seven former Voicebox Technologies patents broadly directed to processing and responding to “natural language” inputs. The defendant is targeted over the provision of the Alexa virtual assistant and a wide variety of products that support it, ranging from Amazon’s e-commerce website to the AmazonBasics Microwave. At issue are features related to speech recognition and natural language processing.

Dialect, LLC has followed up its February 2023 suit against Samsung, filed in the Eastern District of Texas, with one this month against Alphabet (Google) (1:23-cv-00378), filed in the District of Delaware. The new complaint targets natural language (NL) processing and voice recognition features within the Google Assistant platform, as well as products incorporating the platform (e.g., IoT devices, servers, software, smartphones, and tablets). The plaintiff appears to be connected to a figure familiar in patent monetization circles.

Dialect, LLC—a plaintiff that appears to be connected to a familiar patent monetization figure—has begun litigating a portfolio of patents originating with Voicebox Technologies (acquired in 2018 by Nuance Communications) with a suit against Samsung (2:23-cv-00061) in the Eastern District of Texas. The nine asserted patents, each appearing in litigation for the first time, are broadly directed to processing and responding to “natural language” inputs. Samsung is accused of infringement through the provision of devices (i.e., Internet of Things devices, smartphones, tablets, and wearables) that incorporate voice-recognition software services, including the Samsung Bixby platform. At issue are features related to speech processing and recognition.

Around this time last year, RPX flagged the movement of a portfolio from Nuance Communications to a Delaware LLC. Generally related to speech recognition and/or processing, the portfolio has changed hands again, landing with yet another Delaware NPE (one that, according to public records, may have recently procured funding).