Nuance v. Vlingo: Legal Battles in the Speech-Recognition Space

It's great to have the biggest stand-alone company in the speech recognition business here in Massachusetts: Nuance Communications. But I wonder if we're starting to see some negative effects... as Nuance seems to believe it owns all of the IP in the speech-rec field. They've been fairly litigious of late, and have yet to win a lawsuit in court.

Today's Globe column focuses on Nuance's latest lawsuit against a rival. This time, the defendant is Vlingo, a 35-person start-up in Harvard Square, co-founded by an ex-Nuance executive, Mike Phillips.

I prepared a chart that didn't run with the column, highlighting some of the other recent Nuance lawsuits. Here it is:

2004 – Burlington-based Nuance Communications, Inc. (then known as ScanSoft, Inc.) files suit against Woburn-based VoiceSignal Technologies, Inc. for infringing a patent related to voice-controlled dialing on mobile phones, and trade secret misappropriation. In 2006, VoiceSignal sues Nuance for patent infringement related to an approach to correcting mistakes used by dictation software. In 2007, Nuance buys Voice Signal for $263 million, ending the litigation.

2004 – Nuance sues ART Advanced Recgnition Technologies, Inc. of Israel for patent infringement over voice-controlled dialing for mobile phones. In 2005, Nuance acquires ART, ending the litigation.

2006 – Nuance sues California-based Tellme Networks, Inc. over two patents related to directory assistance and call center technologies. Microsoft acquired Tellme in 2007, but the lawsuit is still pending.

2006 – Nuance sues SoftMed Systems, Inc. of Maryland, alleging that SoftMed violated patents that cover centralized digital dictation systems and priority voicemail systems. The two companies later settled out of court.

2008 – Nuance sues Vlingo, Inc. of Cambridge over a patent pertaining to adapting speech recognition software to individual users.