Sensory, Inc.—a plaintiff describing itself as a "develop[ing] and licens[ing] technologies for speech recognition, wakewords, sound identification, natural language understanding, custom voice assistants, face and voice biometrics, and computer vision"—has filed a Western District of Texas complaint against Amazon (1:25-cv-00763). The plaintiff asserts seven patents generally related to "speech recognition and control", targeting provision of the speech recognition capabilities of Amazon Alexa within products ranging from smart speakers to TVs.
The patents-in-suit (6,785,647; 7,418,392; 7,774,204; 8,195,467; 8,645,132; 8,768,707; 9,142,219) span multiple families, all but the '647 patent naming Todd F. Mozer as an inventor. On social media, Mozer identifies himself as the CEO, chairman, and founder of Sensory, which California records indicate was formed as "Sensory Circuits, Inc." in that state in January 1994, changing the name (to its current iteration) in 1996. On social media, Mozer indicates that he "[f]ounded Sensory to enable people to communicate with consumer electronics like we communicate with eachother [sic]". There, he characterizes Sensory's "customers" as "leaders in consumer electronics companies", providing the following list: "Amazon, AT[&]T, Garmin, Google, GoPro, Huawei, Kenwood, LG, Mattel, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and many many more".
On its public website, Sensory describes itself as a "technology development house that licenses embedded AI to differentiate products and make them safer to use", boasting that it "pioneered neural network approaches for embedded speech recognition in consumer electronics". There, it contends that it has "shipped in over two billion products from hundreds of leading consumer electronics manufacturers including ATT, Hasbro, Huawei, Google, Amazon, Samsung, LG, Mattel, Motorola, Plantronics, GoPro, Sony, Tencent, Garmin, LG, Microsoft, Lenovo, and more". It further states that it has "over 60 issued patents covering speech recognition in consumer electronics, biometric authentication, sensor/speech combinations, wake word technology, and more".
Sensory pleads willfulness, at least as to some of the patents-in-suit, alleging that it sent letters (attached to the complaint) to Amazon in October and November 2024. In the attachments, Sensory explains its past interactions with Amazon:
As noted above in the list of past and current customers of Sensory, Sensory has been a supplier to Amazon in the past. Under a Software License Agreement entered in 2017, Amazon purchased Sensory's TrulyHandsfree® software and commissioned fixed and user defined triggers for the software. A copy of the 2017 Agreement is enclosed. Under the agreement, Amazon agreed to pay a one-time and annual license fee as well as a royalty of $0.215 for each device that used the software (see virtual page 26 of the Agreement). Sensory terminated the 2017 Agreement in 2019, and a copy of the termination is enclosed.
In 2021, Sensory approached Amazon about licensing its patents through a consultant name [sic] Rowan Patents (now part of Clarivate), but that effort did not result in a patent license agreement. We understand that Scott Sanford was involved in those conversations on behalf of Amazon[,] and we are copying him on this letter.
These communications apparently included claim charts as well.
For some of Sensory's patents, Forrest Mozer, Todd's father, is also a named inventor. A University of California Berkeley professor, Forrest is characterized elsewhere as a "pioneer in digitized speech". In connection with a 2015 interview of Forrest, he is described as follows:
Forrest Mozer invented and patented the first integrated circuit speech synthesizer in 1974. He licensed this technology to TeleSensory Systems, which used it in the Speech+ talking calculator. Later, National Semiconductor also licensed the technology, used for its "DigiTalker" speech synthesizer.
In 1984, Mozer founded Electronic Speech Systems to develop and market speech synthesis products. In 1994, Mozer and his son Todd, founded Sensory Circuits, Inc., now Sensory, Inc., where they developed the RSC-164 speech recognition integrated circuit. Mozer has 17 US patents in the areas of speech synthesis and speech recognition.
The Mozers are reported to have cofounded "ESS Technology". In 1999, Sensory apparently acquired Fluent Speech Technologies, incorporating the acquired "high performance embedded speech engines" into its "core technology", "used throughout Sensory's chip and software line". Mike Mozer, apparently Todd's brother and now a professor of computer science at University of Colorado Boulder, has been characterized as a cofounder of Sensory as well. His online biography indicates that he serves on "advisory boards for companies that apply machine learning and pattern recognition methods to challenging real-world problems", including "AnswerOn, Cognilytics, Exelis Visual Information Solutions, Imagen Technologies, Open Table,Sensory [sic]".
The '647 patent issued to sole named inventor William R. Hutchison (with Applied Behavior Systems in Boulder, Colorado) in August 2004. Hutchison assigned the patent to Me Me Me (f/k/a Central Speech Company) in October 2008. In August 2016, Me Me Me transferred the '647 patent to Sensory. Peter Marshall (now identifying himself as the CEO of IdeasWare, "working on AI, robotics, and nanotechnology, with special attention to the military-industrial complex and the national security weapons of war which will be extremely dangerous in 10 years") signed for Me Me ME, apparently as its CEO at that time.
On social media, Hutchison dates his time with Me Me Me (as "Founder & Chief Scientist") from May 2008 through May 2015, during which the company is characterized as having "developed high quality speech recognition for mobile and all other internet-connected devices based on [his] patented method: a cloud-based system that adapts to each user and centralizes the resulting model of use by any internet linked application without additional training". Me Me Me apparently "had major customers including Costco, Lowes, Crate and Barrel, Buy.com, and NBC". Hutchison lists two current positions: "Owner and Chief Scientist" with Behavior Systems LLC (since 1984), where he claims to have "invented one of the earliest examples of modern neural networks with reinforcement learning and the basis for this company"; and Chief Scientist with AI Monitoring Systems (since September 2023), where he is apparently "[d]eveloping and applying vision analyses of many kinds to enable monitoring of safety and security related behaviors in workplaces and public spaces".
Global IP Law Group, LLC out of Chicago, Illinois represents Sensory. The case has been assigned to District Judge Alan D. Albright. 5/19, Western District of Texas.
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