There have been a couple of instances where we have come unstuck on announcements:
The GPI deal was subverted by a takeover;
The Tier 1 North American car maker reference forced us to disclose Ford, presumably contrary to their wishes and probably a NDA.
NDAs are at the core of technical development cooperation and commercial plans, and the company has stated before that customers would abandon a project if an NDA were to be broken.
As for the silence on the patent front, one possible differentiator is that this patent can be considered more as a defensive patent intended to capture an application of Akida. It may or may not an application which the company has any plans to exploit directly.
The "core business" of the company is licensing the Akida SoC IP, not in licensing uses of the IP. However, where the company engineers conceive of a potentially commercially worthwhile implementation, it makes sense to protect that application.
However, the company also needs to ensure that its patents do not scare off potential Akida IP customers by inhibiting their ability to utilize the IP.
As to the upcoming patent announcement:
US2020143229A1 SPIKING NEURAL NETWORK
Describes a method of shuffling incoming spikes to direct them to the appropriate NPU:
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US STPP | Z: Not classifiable | INFORMATION ON STATUS: PATENT APPLICATION AND GRANTING PROCEDURE IN GENERAL | | 2022-05-02 | | Further information
NOTICE OF ALLOWANCE MAILED -- APPLICATION RECEIVED IN OFFICE OF PUBLICATIONS |
US STPP | Z: Not classifiable | INFORMATION ON STATUS: PATENT APPLICATION AND GRANTING PROCEDURE IN GENERAL | | 2022-07-18 | | Further information
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US STPP | Z: Not classifiable | INFORMATION ON STATUS: PATENT APPLICATION AND GRANTING PROCEDURE IN GENERAL | | 2022-08-02 | | Further information
NOTICE OF ALLOWANCE MAILED -- APPLICATION RECEIVED IN OFFICE OF PUBLICATIONS |
US STPP | Z: Not classifiable | INFORMATION ON STATUS: PATENT APPLICATION AND GRANTING PROCEDURE IN GENERAL | | 2022-08-05 | | Further information
PUBLICATIONS -- ISSUE FEE PAYMENT VERIFIED |