DCT
6:19-cv-00432
Parus Holding
Key Events
Amended Complaint
I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information
- Parties & Counsel:
- Plaintiff: Parus Holdings Inc. (Delaware)
- Defendant: Amazon.com, Inc. (Delaware)
- Plaintiff’s Counsel: Ward, Smith & Hill, PLLC; Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC
- Case Identification: 6:19-cv-00432, W.D. Tex., 12/14/2020
- Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper because Amazon maintains a regular and established place of business in the Western District of Texas, including fulfillment centers, Amazon Hub Lockers, and other physical locations, and has committed acts of infringement within the district.
- Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s Alexa-enabled products, including the Amazon Echo family of smart speakers, infringe patents related to voice-activated systems for retrieving information from the internet.
- Technical Context: The technology at issue falls within the domain of voice-based digital assistants and smart speakers, which allow users to interact with online services and control devices using spoken commands.
- Key Procedural History: This Third Amended Complaint was filed in a consolidated case. The two asserted patents descend from a common priority application. Subsequent to the filing of this complaint, the asserted independent claims of both patents-in-suit (Claim 1 of the ’431 Patent and Claim 1 of the ’084 Patent) were canceled in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Case Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2000-02-04 | Earliest Priority Date for ’431 and ’084 Patents |
| 2006-07-11 | U.S. Patent No. 7,076,431 Issues |
| 2016-09-20 | U.S. Patent No. 9,451,084 Issues |
| 2020-12-14 | Third Amended Complaint Filed |
| 2023-12-01 | IPR Certificate Cancels Asserted Claim 1 of ’084 Patent |
| 2023-12-04 | IPR Certificate Cancels Asserted Claim 1 of ’431 Patent |
II. Technology and Patent(s)-in-Suit Analysis
U.S. Patent No. 7,076,431 - "Robust voice browser system and voice activated device controller"
The Invention Explained
- Problem Addressed: At the time of the invention, accessing the internet was primarily done through bulky desktop or laptop computers, or through expensive and limited early-generation PDAs and web-phones. The patent notes that voice-based access systems present a unique technical challenge because users expect near-instantaneous responses, unlike the delays tolerated in screen-based browsing. (’431 Patent, col. 1:30-2:66).
- The Patented Solution: The invention describes a system that allows a user to retrieve information from the internet using natural, conversational voice commands spoken into any telephone-like device. The system maintains a database of pre-selected websites, each assigned a rank. When a user makes a request, the system accesses the highest-ranked relevant website to retrieve the information and converts it into an audio response. (’431 Patent, Abstract; col. 3:28-4:11). The system is designed to periodically "poll" these websites to check for functionality and response speed, automatically adjusting the rankings to ensure users are always directed to the most reliable and fastest source. (’431 Patent, col. 3:55-4:4).
- Technical Importance: This approach aimed to decouple internet information retrieval from a dedicated computer and screen, making it accessible through ubiquitous telephone devices while addressing the critical issue of latency inherent in voice-based interactions. (’431 Patent, col. 2:59-66).
Key Claims at a Glance
- The complaint asserts independent claim 1. (Compl. ¶31).
- The essential elements of Claim 1 include:
- A system with a computer connected to the internet and a voice-enabled device for user commands.
- A speaker-independent speech recognition device and a speech synthesis device.
- An instruction set comprising a "plurality of pre-selected web site addresses."
- At least one "recognition grammar" corresponding to the instruction set and a user's speech command.
- The computer is configured to retrieve the correct instruction set based on the recognized command.
- The computer is configured to access the web sites, starting with a first site and, if the information is not found, "to sequentially access the plurality of web sites" until the information is found or all sites have been accessed.
- The speech synthesis device is configured to produce and transmit an audio message containing the retrieved information.
- The complaint does not explicitly reserve the right to assert dependent claims for this patent.
U.S. Patent No. 9,451,084 - "Robust voice browser system and voice activated device controller"
The Invention Explained
- Problem Addressed: As a continuation of the application that led to the ’431 Patent, the ’084 Patent addresses the same technical problems of providing robust, reliable, and low-latency voice-based access to internet information from any voice-enabled device. (Compl. ¶23, fn. 1; ’084 Patent, col. 1:45-2:55).
- The Patented Solution: The ’084 Patent describes a similar system architecture but includes claims with different scope and features. The core concept remains a voice-driven system that accesses an ordered listing of web sites to retrieve information and deliver it to a user in audio format. A key feature described in the asserted claim is the system's ability to "periodically search... to identify new web sites and to add the new web sites to the plurality of web sites." (’084 Patent, cl. 1, col. 24:11-14).
- Technical Importance: This patent family represents an early approach to solving the core technical hurdles of what would eventually become the modern digital assistant market. (’084 Patent, col. 2:50-55).
Key Claims at a Glance
- The complaint asserts independent claim 1. (Compl. ¶75).
- The essential elements of Claim 1 include:
- A system with a computing device coupled to a network, a speaker-independent speech-recognition device, a speech-synthesis device, and memory.
- An instruction set stored in memory, comprising a "plurality of web site addresses" and at least one "recognition grammar."
- The computing device is configured to select the appropriate recognition grammar based on a user's speech command.
- The computing device is further configured to "periodically search... to identify new web sites and to add the new web sites to the plurality of web sites."
- The computing device is configured to access a first website from the plurality and, if information is not found, to access the remaining sites "in an order defined for accessing the listing."
- The speech-synthesis device is configured to produce and transmit an audio message with the retrieved information.
- The complaint does not explicitly reserve the right to assert dependent claims for this patent.
III. The Accused Instrumentality
Product Identification
- The accused products are Amazon devices that incorporate the Alexa virtual assistant, with the Amazon Echo product line being the primary example. (Compl. ¶¶31, 39).
Functionality and Market Context
- The complaint alleges the accused products comprise a system for retrieving information from pre-selected websites in response to voice commands and providing that information back to the user in an audio format. (Compl. ¶41). The Amazon Echo device is described as including key hardware components such as a microphone array, a speaker, a processor, and Wi-Fi connectivity to the internet. (Compl. ¶¶42-44, 86). The complaint provides a teardown image from iFixit showing the internal processor and memory components of an Amazon Echo. (Compl. p. 14). The system's functionality relies on cloud-based processing where user speech is sent to Amazon's servers for Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to determine user intent. (Compl. ¶¶47-48). The complaint alleges that Alexa retrieves information from pre-selected, crawled websites, and specifically identifies Microsoft's Bing search engine as a source for this information. (Compl. ¶¶48, 53-54).
IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations
7,076,431 Patent Infringement Allegations
| Claim Element (from Independent Claim 1) | Alleged Infringing Functionality | Complaint Citation | Patent Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| a computer, said computer operatively connected to the internet | The Amazon Echo includes a processor (e.g., Texas Instruments DM3725 ARM Cortex-A8) and has Wi-Fi connectivity to the internet. | ¶43-44 | col. 4:65-66 |
| a voice enabled device operatively connected to said computer... configured to receive speech commands from users | The Amazon Echo includes a microphone and is configured to receive speech commands from users. | ¶45-47 | col. 4:42-45 |
| at least one speaker-independent speech recognition device | The Alexa service utilizes a speaker-independent speech recognition system (ASR and NLU) to process voice commands from any user. | ¶49 | col. 4:49-52 |
| at least one speech synthesis device | The Alexa service uses a speech synthesis device to generate audio responses that are played through the Amazon Echo's speaker. | ¶50 | col. 4:60-64 |
| at least one instruction set... comprising... a plurality of pre-selected web site addresses | The Alexa service uses an instruction set that relies on a plurality of pre-selected and pre-crawled websites (e.g., via the Bing index) to retrieve information. | ¶53-54 | col. 3:30-33 |
| at least one recognition grammar associated with said computer... corresponding to... a speech command | The Alexa system utilizes recognition grammars (e.g., an artificial neural network and user-defined skills) that correspond to speech commands. | ¶55-56 | col. 4:51-54 |
| said computer configured to retrieve said instruction set corresponding to said recognition grammar selected by said... device | The computer is configured to retrieve the instruction set (e.g., the specific skill or search query) based on the grammar selected by the speech recognition device. | ¶62-63 | col. 4:46-49 |
| said computer further configured to... sequentially access the plurality of web sites until the information to be retrieved is found | The computer accesses at least one website from its plurality of pre-selected sites and, if information is not found, is configured to sequentially access others until the information is found. | ¶64 | col. 3:42-45 |
| said speech synthesis device configured to produce an audio message containing any retrieved information | The speech synthesis device produces an audio message (e.g., "the weather is...") containing the information retrieved from the web. | ¶66 | col. 4:60-64 |
9,451,084 Patent Infringement Allegations
| Claim Element (from Independent Claim 1) | Alleged Infringing Functionality | Complaint Citation | Patent Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| at least one computing device, the computing device operatively coupled to one or more networks | The Amazon Echo includes a processor and is operatively coupled to the internet via Wi-Fi. The complaint provides a system overview diagram illustrating this connectivity. (Compl. p. 18). | ¶91 | col. 4:65-66 |
| memory operatively associated with the computing device with at least one instruction set for identifying the information to be retrieved | The Amazon Echo includes memory that is associated with the computing device and stores instruction sets for Alexa to run. | ¶97-98 | col. 5:1-15 |
| the instruction set... comprising a plurality of web site addresses for the listing of web sites | The instruction set for Alexa includes a plurality of website addresses from pre-crawled sites (e.g., from the Bing index) that contain information to be retrieved. | ¶100-102 | col. 3:30-33 |
| at least one recognition grammar associated with the computing device... the speaker-independent speech-recognition device configured to... select the corresponding recognition grammar | The Alexa system uses an artificial neural network as a speech recognition grammar and selects the appropriate grammar/skill based on the user's speech command. | ¶103-104 | col. 4:51-54 |
| the computing device is configured to retrieve the instruction set corresponding to the recognition grammar | The computing device is configured to retrieve the specific instruction set (e.g., query) corresponding to the grammar selected by the speech recognition device. | ¶105 | col. 4:46-49 |
| the computing device... further configured to periodically search... to identify new web sites and to add the new web sites to the plurality of web sites | The accused system uses technology (e.g., Bing's crawler, Bingbot) that periodically crawls the web to find new and updated pages, adding them to its index of sites. A screenshot from bing.com shows its different web crawlers. (Compl. p. 20). | ¶107 | col. 3:55-61 |
| the computer configured to access... web sites... in an order defined... until the information to be retrieved is found | The computing device accesses websites from the plurality until the information is retrieved. | ¶107 | col. 3:38-45 |
| the speech synthesis devices... configured to produce an audio message containing any retrieved information | The speech synthesis components of the Alexa service are configured to generate an audio message containing the retrieved information for the user. | ¶111 | col. 4:60-64 |
Identified Points of Contention
- Scope Questions: A central question may be whether the term "plurality of pre-selected web site addresses" can be construed to read on the vast, dynamic index of a third-party, general-purpose search engine like Bing. The patent specification's examples suggest a more limited, curated list of specific sites for a given category (e.g., weather, stocks), which raises the question of a scope mismatch with the accused system's alleged operation.
- Technical Questions: For the ’431 Patent, it may be disputed whether the accused system performs a "sequential access" where it tries one site, determines failure, and then tries a second. For the ’084 Patent, a key question may be whether the accused Amazon system itself performs the "periodically search... to identify new web sites" function, or if it merely leverages a separate service (Bing) that performs this function for its own purposes. The distinction between the claimed actions of the "computing device" and the functions of a third-party service it queries could be a focal point.
V. Key Claim Terms for Construction
The Term: "plurality of pre-selected web site addresses" (present in both asserted claims)
- Context and Importance: The definition of this term is critical to the infringement analysis. The dispute may turn on whether this term is limited to a relatively small, curated list of websites for a specific topic, as described in the patent's embodiments, or if it can broadly cover the entire index of a web crawler like Bing, which the complaint alleges the accused products use. Practitioners may focus on this term because it represents a potential disconnect between the patent's disclosure and the operation of modern search-based digital assistants.
- Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
- Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The plain language of the claim does not explicitly limit the number of "pre-selected" sites or the mechanism by which they are selected. One could argue that any site included in an index prior to a user's query is "pre-selected."
- Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification describes a database that "categorizes each database record 200 according to the type of information provided by each web site" and gives examples like "weather" or "stock" information. (e.g., ’431 Patent, col. 5:15-24). The patent's Table 1 explicitly lists specific URLs for the "weather" category, which may support an interpretation that "pre-selected" implies a curated, topic-specific list rather than a general search index. (’431 Patent, col. 6:1-40).
The Term: "sequentially access" ('431 Patent, Claim 1)
- Context and Importance: This term defines the process for trying multiple websites. Its construction is important because modern search engines typically present a list of results simultaneously, rather than trying a first option, awaiting failure, and then trying a second. The viability of the infringement theory may depend on whether this term requires a step-by-step, conditional process.
- Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
- Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: A party might argue that "sequentially" can simply mean "in a sequence" or "in an order," which could describe accessing sites based on their rank in a list of search results.
- Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The full claim limitation reads, "if said information to be retrieved is not found at said first web site, said computer configured to sequentially access said plurality of web sites." This conditional language ("if... not found... then") suggests a serial, trial-and-error process. The specification's discussion of re-ranking sites that are "not functioning" or "too slow" further supports this interpretation. (’431 Patent, col. 3:6-10).
VI. Other Allegations
- Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges that Amazon induces infringement by instructing and encouraging customers and developers to use the accused Alexa products and services in an infringing manner, citing user manuals, advertising, and developer tools like the Alexa Skills Kit. (Compl. ¶¶70-71, 117-118). It also alleges contributory infringement, stating the accused products are especially made for use in an infringing manner and are not staple articles of commerce. (Compl. ¶¶72, 119).
- Willful Infringement: While not pleaded as a separate count, the complaint lays the groundwork for willfulness by alleging Amazon had constructive notice of the patents based on Plaintiff's marking practices dating back to 2007 for the '431 Patent and 2018 for the '084 Patent. It further alleges Amazon gained actual knowledge upon the filing of the original complaint in the action. (Compl. ¶¶32, 76).
VII. Analyst’s Conclusion: Key Questions for the Case
- Procedural Finality: A primary issue is one of procedural finality: given that the asserted independent claims of both patents were canceled in inter partes review proceedings after the filing of this complaint, a dispositive question is whether any viable infringement case remains based on other, unasserted claims, or if the IPR outcomes effectively terminate the dispute.
- Definitional Scope: A core technical issue will be one of definitional scope: can the term "plurality of pre-selected web site addresses," rooted in the patent's description of a curated and ranked list of sites for a specific topic, be construed to cover the vast and dynamic index of a general-purpose search engine that the accused Alexa service allegedly queries?
- Functional Attribution: A key evidentiary question will be one of functional attribution: does the accused Amazon system itself perform the claimed functions of "sequentially access[ing]" sites after a failure or "periodically search[ing]... to identify new web sites," or are these functions performed by a distinct, third-party service (Bing) whose operational details may not be attributable to the accused "computing device" as required by the claims?