Open Source Voice Assistant Promises To 'Nuke From Orbit' Patent Troll

from the take-no-prisoners dept

Open source voice assistant company Mycroft AI (which we actually wrote about years back) appears to be the latest startup to recognize that the only way to properly deal with patent trolls is to fight back. This strategy was first pioneered by online retailer Newegg, whose refusal to give in to any patent trolls eventually (after years of litigation) meant that patent trolls stopped trying to shake the company down. More recently, Cloudlfare has taken a similarly successful approach.

It appears that these kinds of moves have inspired Mycroft's CEO, Joshua Montgomery, to take quite a stand now that a patent troll is trying to shake his company down:

Tod Tumey of Tumey LLP based out of Texas ( a venue famous for hosting patent trolls ) contacted us with a “Highly Confidential” letter offering to license his “client’s” “valuable” voice patents to Mycroft AI Inc. When we didn’t respond ( don’t feed the trolls! ) he filed suit in East Texas.

As a result, we’ve taken the time to develop an internal policy about how we’re going to deal with patent trolls. Here is how we’re going to handle them:

Our policy is also to attack bogus patents like U.S. Patent No. 9,794,348 and have them re-examined and invalidated where possible.  We’ll be doing this in the context of a strong open source community that includes other troll hunters like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Open Innovation Network – both of whom have a strong interest in protecting open technology from rent-seeking trolls.

Patent trolls get paid because short-sighted companies make the decision to pay. Simply put, it is usually cheaper in the short run to pay a troll than it is to litigate. It is also cheaper to give a schoolyard bully your lunch money than it is to visit a doctor. The thing is, once you pay the bully, he’ll just come back again and again and again. Eventually, that lunch money adds up to a lot more than a doctor’s visit. In the long run the best way to deal with a bully is to punch him square in the face. You might take a beating, but if you do it every time? The bully will find easier prey.

I don’t like letting these matters go quietly. In my experience, it’s better to be aggressive and "stab, shoot and hang” them, then dissolve them in acid. Or simply nuke them from orbit, it is the only way to be sure.

Don't hold back on letting us know how you really feel, Joshua.

Anyway, he also notes that the lawyer, Tumey, appears to have filed in the wrong venue (which one is not indicated), and so Mycroft is seeking to move the case, and then it's going to go after Tumey for legal fees. Good for them.

Filed Under: joshua montgomery, patent trolls, patents, shakedowns, tod tumey, voice assistant
Companies: mycroft ai

Did Apple Spill The Beans On Its New Voice Assistant Product 24 Years Ago?

from the not-really,-but... dept

This one is just amusing -- so please don't try to pull any sort of "serious" statement out of it. Apple announced its voice activated Siri assistant feature, which is a bit more advanced than similar attempts at this kind of thing: It's definitely a step closer to the science fiction of our past and things like the "Computer" on Star Trek (though, perhaps many steps away from it being that useful). So, the idea itself isn't that impressive. People have been talking about this kind of holy grail for years. The question was just always when would the technology be good enough to make it work. And, amusingly, it looks like Apple may have predicted the timing much more accurately than anyone could have guessed.

Back in 1987, Apple put out this video showing a future with a tablet-based virtual assistant called the Knowledge Navigator: But where is the prediction of the timing in there? Well, I'll let Andy Baio, who figured this all out, handle the explanation:

Based on the dates mentioned in the Knowledge Navigator video, it takes place on September 16, 2011. The date on the professor's calendar is September 16, and he's looking for a 2006 paper written "about five years ago," setting the year as 2011.

And this morning, at the iPhone keynote, Apple announced Siri, a natural language-based voice assistant, would be built into iOS 5 and a core part of the new iPhone 4S.

So, 24 years ago, Apple predicted a complex natural-language voice assistant built into a touchscreen Apple device, and was less than a month off.

Nicely done, Apple of the past.

Filed Under: predictions, siri, voice assistant
Companies: apple