Nuance Communications, Inc. v. Omilia Natural Language Solutions, Ltd. (19-cv-11438).

Judge Saris denied Omilia 2019s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. Omilia, a Cyprus corporation, sought either dismissal or transfer to the Northern District of Illinois, where it concedes it has sufficient contacts to support personal jurisdiction. Looking into Omilia 2019s contacts with Massachusetts, Judge Saris determined that Omlilia had the necessary contacts to support personal jurisdiction. She noted that Omilia had identified Boston as its 201cNorth American Office 201d on its website and provided Boston contact information from 2015 to the time it received Nuance 2019s cease and desist letter in October 2018. Judge Saris further did not credit Omilia 2019s attempts to identify its Boston contact person as an independent contractor, because Omilia 2019s website had indicated that he was the company 2019s 201cemployee number 6 201d in 2012. She further noted the LinkedIn profile of Omilia 2019s CEO, which indicated that he worked for Omilia in Boston. Finally Judge Saris pointed to Omilia 2019s having a physical address in Boston (a WeWork location which served primarily as a mailing address) and Omilia 2019s presentation at a conference in the state. She found each of these supported purposeful availment. She then looked to the relatedness of these contacts with the asserted patent infringement. Noting that Federal Circuit law on this subject was more permissive towards finding relatedness than many of the other Federal Circuit 2019s law, she determined that Omilia 2019s attempts to market and sell accused products to customers in Massachusetts (which occurred at least in part through these contacts) was enough. Finally, Judge Saris determined that hailing Omilia into a Massachusetts court was not unreasonable, because Massachusetts has a strong interest in protecting Nuance, a Massachusetts company, from infringement, that Omilia had not overcome. As a result, this case will proceed in Massachusetts.