covering the week's top tech dorks like
Linux bias startup my craft a I stood up
to a patent troll who filed a lawsuit
against it for a building and open
source Linux based voice controlled
assistant my craft AI develops voice
assistant software that runs on Linux
systems including the Raspberry Pi the
device it can then respond to spoken
requests similar to Amazon echo or
Google home such as setting alarms and
reminders searching the web and so on my
craft day I at first learned trouble was
brewing a when it was contacted in
December by a lawyer at a Texas law firm
focused on intellectual property in an
email to the startup CEO Joshua
Montgomery the lawyer claimed my craft a
eyes technology infringed two US patents
belonging to their client voice tech
court these patents described a system
for a handling quote voice commands from
a mobile device to remotely access and
control a computer and quote initially
the lawyer offered Mycroft AI a
non-exclusive license of voice text
patents however after Montgomery ignored
the emails voice tech sued Mycroft AI
for patent infringement earlier this
month
Montgomery declared he's ready to fight
the lawsuit all the way he told the
register quote this is a textbook case
of why the US patent system is
fundamentally broken software is math
running on a microchip sure it's written
in a particular language and that is
copyrightable but math is not patentable
unquote according to their abstract the
patents involve quote receiving audio
data from mobile device at the computer
the audio data is decoded into a command
a software program that the command was
provided for is determined at least one
process is executed at the computer in
response to the command output data is
generated at the computer in response to
executing at least one process at the
computer the output data is
mitad to the mobile device and quote the
Montgomery argued the patents do not
reflect the complexity and architecture
of modern assistants and pointed out my
Mycroft AI doesn't even involve a
separate mobile device because Mycroft
AI is based in Missouri they'd have to
spend money hiring a law firm in Texas
to work with its attorney montgomery
described voice tack in his opinion as a
quote patent troll end quote
and compared such organizations to
playground bullies he said if you don't
stand up the first time it you'll get
picked on forever
end quote On February 11th voice Tech
voluntarily dismissed the case in an
update posted to Mycroft blog
Montgomery says quote we have won the
battle not the war he also noted the
outpouring of support from the open
source community staying over the last
week we have been humbled by the
outpouring of support thousands of you
shared the shared the post sent in
further evidence of the incident
invalidity of the patent claims offered
your expert testimony and even wanted to
contribute financially to the legal
defense from everyone at Mycroft
thank you all end quote I love that the
open source community comes together yes
yes and says you know what we're gonna
back you up we're gonna help you with
this I think that in all of this is the
big win statement because it shows you
that it's not just about company versus
company it's the community that's behind
it and I mean we hear this all the time
where somebody gets kind of beaten over
the head going we have this generic
patent that covers about everything
you're infringing upon it yeah and it's
like come on
as you're as you're talking about this
patent I'm thinking like have you never
seen an episode of Star Trek this is
this is all the stuff that we were
talking about in the 80s like this is
not something you can really patent
right this is something we've had all
along unreal I'm really happy that they
dropped it because to be honest that
would have been a relief it wouldn't
have been a fair
in that they would have had to hire a
lawyer outside the state they would have
associate restful yeah anyone but like
what a waste of resource
no you're right but feel like you're on
the defensive and you know the whole
thing would have been yucky and I really
loved that they felt supported in the
way it was shown yeah exactly
and check out Mycroft I mean it's a
great project so think about your amazon
echo or Google home Mini or whatever
device you have and then create an
open-source kind of alternative that you
can install on a Raspberry Pi and create
your own virtual assistant and create
plug-ins for it and everything else
definitely something we need to look at
category five
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