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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Apple is suing both a Chinese government agency and a Shanghai technology business over patents involving the company's Siri voice assistant, said Xinhua, the official state press agency of the People's Republic of China (via AFP).
Apple launched the case against the State Intellectual Property Office, which is in charge of patent rights protection in China, and Shanghai's Zhizhen Network Technology, which developed software similar to Siri, the report said.
This lawsuit involves a voice recognition patent owned by Zhizhen that covers its Xiaoi chat robot system. Xiaoi began in 2003 as a chat bot for MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and other similar chat networks. It has expanded to other platforms including iOS and Android, where it bears a striking similarity to Siri.

Zhizhen was awarded patent rights for the underlying Xiaoi technology in 2006 and used these rights in 2012 to sue Apple for patent infringement. The case was heard in July 2013, but a decision from the Shanghai court was never announced. Apple failed to block Zhizhen's infringement claim when a request to invalidate the company's voice recognition patent was denied by the State Intellectual Property Office

The first hearing in this latest case will be held later this week.

Article Link: Apple Sues Chinese Government Agency and Shanghai Company Over Siri-Related Patents
 

Nanasaki

macrumors 6502
Oct 26, 2010
320
0
[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


Apple is suing both a Chinese government agency and a Shanghai technology business over patents involving the company's Siri voice assistant, said Xinhua, the official state press agency of the People's Republic of China (Via AFP). This lawsuit involves a voice recognition patent owned by Zhizhen that covers its Xiaoi chat robot system. Xiaoi began in 2003 as a chat bot for MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and other similar chat networks. It has expanded to other platforms including iOS and Android, where it bears a striking similarity to Siri.

YouTube: video
Zhizhen was awarded patent rights for the underlying Xiaoi technology in 2006 and used these rights in 2012 to sue Apple for patent infringement. The case was heard in July 2013, but a decision from the Shanghai court was never announced. Apple failed to block Zhizhen's infringement claim when a request to invalidate the company's voice recognition patent was denied by the State Intellectual Property Office

The first hearing in this latest case will be held later this week.

Article Link: Apple Sues Chinese Government Agency and Shanghai Company Over Siri-Related Patents

Good luck for Apple for suing Chinese government... As Chinese lived in China for more than 25 years, I know you could sue everyone in China but government and government affiliated.
 

aajeevlin

macrumors 65816
Mar 25, 2010
1,427
715
China? Patents? Sue the government? I had no idea those things actually goes together....
 

Dominicanyor

macrumors 65816
Apr 1, 2012
1,229
253
Florida
Ok so after asking for the map to be open. What did he ask for? What ever it was seems like Chinese Siri was reading it.
 

krravi

macrumors 65816
Nov 30, 2010
1,173
0
Did they misspell "State Intellectual Property Office"? More like "State Intellectual Theft Office".
 

tongxinshe

macrumors 65816
Feb 24, 2008
1,064
651
What is Apple thinking? According to this article, Xiaoi started operating years before Siri was introduced, and Apple is still suing???!!! :eek:
 

catcat2020

macrumors newbie
Oct 9, 2008
9
3
Who should sue?

If I read the post correctly, the facts are:

1. Xiaoi began in 2003 as a chat bot for MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and other similar chat networks
2. Zhizhen was awarded patent rights for the underlying Xiaoi technology in 2006

3. (from Wikipedia) Siri was originally introduced as an iOS application available in the App Store by Siri, Inc., which was acquired by Apple on April 28, 2010.[4] Siri, Inc.

as an Apple fan, I got my first gen iPhone in 2007 and Siri was only introduced as beta in iPhone 4S (2011), so who should sue who?
 

macs4nw

macrumors 601
What is Apple thinking? According to this article, Xiaoi started operating years before Siri was introduced, and Apple is still suing???!!! :eek:

Yeah, but when was Siri first patented by Dag Kittlaus of SRI International with technology from Nuance, all this well before Siri's introduction on the iPhone??

Can't seem to Google that info, but I seem to remember (perhaps incorrectly) that the above was the way it went down.

Either way, even if Apple was justified in suing the Chinese, I'd say "Good luck with that!"
 

Beautyspin

macrumors 6502a
Dec 14, 2012
639
659
Wanted to post but

Wanted to post a Good luck with that message - but there were so many.. I did not - sort of!!!
 

Intelligent

macrumors 6502a
Aug 7, 2013
922
2
[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


Apple is suing both a Chinese government agency and a Shanghai technology business over patents involving the company's Siri voice assistant, said Xinhua, the official state press agency of the People's Republic of China (via AFP). This lawsuit involves a voice recognition patent owned by Zhizhen that covers its Xiaoi chat robot system. Xiaoi began in 2003 as a chat bot for MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and other similar chat networks. It has expanded to other platforms including iOS and Android, where it bears a striking similarity to Siri.

YouTube: video
Zhizhen was awarded patent rights for the underlying Xiaoi technology in 2006 and used these rights in 2012 to sue Apple for patent infringement. The case was heard in July 2013, but a decision from the Shanghai court was never announced. Apple failed to block Zhizhen's infringement claim when a request to invalidate the company's voice recognition patent was denied by the State Intellectual Property Office

The first hearing in this latest case will be held later this week.

Article Link: Apple Sues Chinese Government Agency and Shanghai Company Over Siri-Related Patents

Ah yis! this stuff is funny!
 
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