Freshub, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc
Authored by: Jeremy J. Gustrowsky
A recent decision from the Federal Circuit has clarified the boundaries of patent infringement when it comes to voice-processing technology, specifically in the context of Amazon’s Alexa shopping-list feature. Freshub, Inc. and its parent company claimed that Amazon’s devices, such as the Echo, infringed their U.S. Patent No. 9,908,153, which covers a system that processes spoken words to add items to a user’s shopping list. However, the court ultimately sided with Amazon, finding that its shopping-list feature did not infringe the asserted patent claims.
At the center of the dispute was whether Alexa’s shopping-list function actually “identifies an item corresponding to the text” as required by the patent. Freshub argued that when a user says, “add bananas to my shopping list,” Alexa extracts the word “bananas” and adds it to the list, thus meeting the patent’s requirements. But Amazon’s evidence showed that Alexa simply adds whatever words the user says—whether or not those words correspond to a real, purchasable product. For example, Alexa would add nonsensical items like “unicorns in a can” to the list without checking if such an item exists. The court agreed that this did not meet the patent’s requirement of identifying a specific item, as the system was not making a choice from a known set of products.
Freshub also sought a new trial, arguing that Amazon’s references to the patent filing dates and other trial statements were prejudicial. The court rejected this argument, noting that Freshub failed to properly object during the trial and that the references were not shown to have unfairly influenced the jury.
On a separate note, Amazon tried to have Freshub’s patents declared unenforceable due to alleged inequitable conduct—claiming that Freshub’s predecessor intentionally abandoned a key patent application and then misrepresented this to the Patent Office. The court found that Amazon did not provide clear and convincing evidence of deceptive intent, and thus, the patents remained enforceable. In the end, the Federal Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision on all points, providing useful guidance on claim interpretation in the software context, and the proof of intent necessary to carry forward an inequitable conduct claim.