Among patent assignments recently made public by the USPTO is the transfer of more than two dozen assets generally related to speech recognition and/or processing from Nuance Communications to a Delaware LLC. The transaction, dated January 1, 2021, followed by two and a half months the execution of an assignment of two US patents, also broadly directed to speech recognition, to the same LLC from another player in the space. This collection of similar assets suggests that additional patent cases may be on the verge of joining a slew of speech recognition campaigns spread out across nearly all stages of the litigation life cycle.

In its most recent 10-Q, filed for the quarter ending on March 31, publicly traded Advanced Voice Recognition Systems, Inc. (AVRS) recounts its history, from the 1994 incorporation of its predecessor NCC, Inc. in Ohio, through its current “operations”, which “are related to patent monetization and the filing of additional patents”. In August 2015, AVRS entered into a “strategic advisory services” agreement with Dominion Harbor Group, LLC under which Dominion Harbor would advance costs up to $10M; however, the parties agreed to terminate the agreement in June 2017. In November 2016, AVRS also entered into a contingency fee agreement with law firm Buether Joe & Carpenter, LLC. Under that agreement, as modified following the termination of the Dominion Harbor agreement, the law firm would “represent AVRS in connection with investigating and asserting claims to the AVRS patents including licensing and litigation activities”, with “[a]ny and all advanced costs…only becom[ing] liabilities if successful”. AVRS then disclosed that it was “in discussion with two potential litigation funding sources” and has now filed its first litigation, suing Apple (2:18-cv-02083) in the District of Arizona.