Sunday, December 29, 2013

Court Enters Judgment Favoring Microsoft over Allvoice Developments

Case Filed: Dec 20, 2010
Case Closed: Dec 23, 2013
Court: Washington Western District Court
Judge: Richard A Jones
Case Summary:
Allvoice Developments US brought a complaint against Microsoft accusing of infringing their U.S. patent US5799273 involving speech recognition interface. The patent entitled ‘Automated proofreading using interface linking recognized words to their audio data while text is being changed’ was issued on Aug 25, 1998 and expiring[i] by Sep 24, 2016. The patent is currently assigned[ii] to Allvoice (source: MaxVal’s Assignment Database).
According to the Court documents, the ‘273 patent describes systems where a computer translates the spoken words of an end user into text. The text can then be copied into a word processing or other computer application.
The complaint alleged that Microsoft has made, used, offered for sale and sold the Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems that include software referred as the Text Services Framework (TSF). The operating systems that include TSF and its related components (the Infringing Products) are the inventions claimed in the ‘273 patent that is employed without authorization.
The Court’s claims construction found that the asserted claims of Allvoice’s ’273 patent are quite specific and require a particular implementation of speech-recognition interface that Microsoft’s accused products do not use. Later, Microsoft filed a summary judgment and the Court granted Microsoft’s motion for summary judgment of non-infringement, thereby entering Judgment in favor of defendant and against plaintiff.
See 2:10-cv-02102 for more details. To get alerts on cases filed/closed, subscribe to our Litigation Alerts.
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[i] Expected expiration date. Patent Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically calculates patent terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents.
[ii] MaxVal offers Patent Assignment Alert service where subscribers receive email alerts when assignments relating to target applications, patents or entities of interest are recorded.

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