Enlarge / The first Amazon Echo speaker.Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A Delaware federal court has ordered Amazon to pay $46.7 million for infringing on four patents belonging to VB Assets with Amazon’s Echo smart speakers and Alexa virtual assistant. A lawsuit from Nuance Communications-owned VB Assets, previously known as VoiceBox Technologies, claimed to have already invented a circular speaker that could connect to the web and answer voice-dictated prompts with a female, robotic voice.
Wednesday’s judgment [PDF], initially reported by Reuters, orders Amazon to pay the sum via running royalty rather than a lump sum. The ruling follows a
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