Post by Admin on Jul 9, 2014 6:25:58 GMT -9
Apple Loses China Speech Recognition Patent Lawsuit, Creating New Hurdles For Siri
By Luke Villapaz@lukeydukey
on July 09 2014 11:09 AM
Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) patent woes grew on Wednesday, after a Beijing court upheld the validity of a speech recognition patent held by Shanghai’s Zhizhen Network Technology Co. Ltd.
The Cupertino, California tech titan took its case to court in February against the Shanghai-based company along with China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) in an effort to invalidate the speech recognition technology patent.
Unfortunately for Apple, the Beijing First Intermediate People’s court ruled in favor of Zhizhen’s claim to the patent.
"Unfortunately, we were not aware of Zhizhen's patent before we introduced Siri (speech recognition technology) and we do not believe we are using this patent," a Beijing-based Apple spokeswoman told Reuters.
However, Apple said it would appeal the decision, according to Xinhua News Agency.
Prior to the February suit, Zhizhen filed a case against Apple in 2012, alleging that the Siri voice recognition technology infringed on one of Zhizhen’s patents, according to the Register.
According to records from China’s SIPO, Zhizhen filed the application for its patent in 2004, titled “Chat Robot System,” which covered its technology called Xiao i Robot. In 2006, that patent was approved and published by China’s SIPO.
Xiao i Robot originally was a chat bot for MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and other services in 2003. In recent years, it has expanded to iOS and Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android devices.
The SIPO patent approval came a year before Siri was developed by startup company, Siri Inc.
Siri Inc. was later acquired by Apple in 2010 and made its first appearance as the spotlight feature of iOS with the introduction of the iPhone 4S in 2011.
By Luke Villapaz@lukeydukey
on July 09 2014 11:09 AM
Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) patent woes grew on Wednesday, after a Beijing court upheld the validity of a speech recognition patent held by Shanghai’s Zhizhen Network Technology Co. Ltd.
The Cupertino, California tech titan took its case to court in February against the Shanghai-based company along with China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) in an effort to invalidate the speech recognition technology patent.
Unfortunately for Apple, the Beijing First Intermediate People’s court ruled in favor of Zhizhen’s claim to the patent.
"Unfortunately, we were not aware of Zhizhen's patent before we introduced Siri (speech recognition technology) and we do not believe we are using this patent," a Beijing-based Apple spokeswoman told Reuters.
However, Apple said it would appeal the decision, according to Xinhua News Agency.
Prior to the February suit, Zhizhen filed a case against Apple in 2012, alleging that the Siri voice recognition technology infringed on one of Zhizhen’s patents, according to the Register.
According to records from China’s SIPO, Zhizhen filed the application for its patent in 2004, titled “Chat Robot System,” which covered its technology called Xiao i Robot. In 2006, that patent was approved and published by China’s SIPO.
Xiao i Robot originally was a chat bot for MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and other services in 2003. In recent years, it has expanded to iOS and Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android devices.
The SIPO patent approval came a year before Siri was developed by startup company, Siri Inc.
Siri Inc. was later acquired by Apple in 2010 and made its first appearance as the spotlight feature of iOS with the introduction of the iPhone 4S in 2011.