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So a solution to this would be to release modified versions of iOS and MacOS for Chinese market without Siri.
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Better still, release a version of Siri that worked - that would confuse the f**k out of them and would convince them it wasn't infringing

before the outcry...I am not being serious!
 
If you actually read the article, you will see that Zhizhen applied for patent in 2004 and Apple acquired Siri in 2010. It is not until Oct 2011 Apple released a beta version of Siri on iPhone 4s. Zhizhen cannot copy something nonexistent.

Release does not equate to Patent filing btw. “It” DID exist long before Apple’s purchase and release date - I.e Nuance, SRI, DARPA. Even a simple Wikipedia search tells you that. The question seems to eventually be what part of “it” is Siri, is the Patent, and when. That’s just uneducated opinion on my part only - I have no background in patent litigation. I do occasionally believe I have background in critical thinking though.
 
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Not surprising...

China has been stealing a lot of technologies from all over the world but now this? That's insane.

Very odd.

Shanghai Zhizhen Shitong Technology Co.,Ltd had 9 years to file this suit after iPhone 4s launched with Siri 2011. Shanghai Zhizhen Shitong Technology Co.,Ltd started as a company in 2001. Then waited another 9 more years until filing this lawsuit!?!

Apple posts record 2ND Quarter revenues and shipments of smartphones and moves up the global ladder above another Chinese smartphone competitor.
Apple announces major move of manufacturing with suppliers over to India.


Does anyone know what year that Tom Gruber, Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer created Siri, Ltd.?

Heck Apple, at this point might as well drop Siri ... start from scratch and call it a day in the life of Siri and write an epilogue. After all Samsung seems to be dropping the towel on Bixby ;) Shortcuts can still work without Siri.

Guess who doesn't have Timmies back no more :)
 
Release does not equate to Patent filing btw. “It” DID exist long before Apple’s purchase and release date - I.e Nuance, SRI, DARPA. Even a simple Wikipedia search tells you that. The question seems to eventually be what part of “it” is Siri, is the Patent, and when. That’s just uneducated opinion on my part only - I have no background in patent litigation. I do occasionally believe I have background in critical thinking though.

I stand corrected that there is no way Zhizhen's patent is a copy of Siri. You raised the possibility from a time of invention perspective that there is possibility that Zhizhen's patent is a copy of other tech/invention which Siri has utilized. I agree with this possibility, although Apple did not claim that, nor are there any current evidence for that. Nonetheless, it is correct to rule out the possibility that Zhizhen's patent copied Siri.

I agree with the point you are making and very strongly agree the importance of critical thinking. The critical thing here is to understand what patent Zhizhen claims is being violated in Siri. All the legal battle so far has focused on whether Zhizhen's patent filing is valid. This is a common strategy to fight allegation of patent infringement. The back and force in Beijing court is about whether the patent filing by Zhizhen is technically valid. The Beijing High Court and Supreme Court have different opinions.
 
Very odd.

Shanghai Zhizhen Shitong Technology Co.,Ltd had 9 years to file this suit after iPhone 4s launched with Siri 2011. Shanghai Zhizhen Shitong Technology Co.,Ltd started as a company in 2001. Then waited another 9 more years until filing this lawsuit!?!

Apple posts record 2ND Quarter revenues and shipments of smartphones and moves up the global ladder above another Chinese smartphone competitor.
Apple announces major move of manufacturing with suppliers over to India.


Does anyone know what year that Tom Gruber, Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer created Siri, Ltd.?

Heck Apple, at this point might as well drop Siri ... start from scratch and call it a day in the life of Siri and write an epilogue. After all Samsung seems to be dropping the towel on Bixby ;) Shortcuts can still work without Siri.

Guess who doesn't have Timmies back no more :)

The first law suit about this was in 2013. There's been several round of ruling and appeals. After Zhizhen files the law suit, Apple challenges that in the court and argues that the patent is invalid. All the legal battle over the years is about whether the patent is filed in a valid way. The fight about whether Siri indeed violates Zhizhen's patent has not started yet.
 
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This case has been going on for many years. The fight centers around whether Zhizhen's patent is valid. Apple first sued to invalidate Zhizhen's patent claim in 2013. Beijing Court rejected Apple's claim and ruled that Zhizhen owns that patent. Then Apple appealed to Beijing Intermediate Court, which again rejected Apple's claim. Apple then appeals to Beijing High Court. Beijing High Court ruled that information about the patent provided by Zhizhen to the court is not in sufficient details and thus sided with Apple. Zhizhen then appeals to the Supreme Court and the court ruled that Zhizhen's patent is indeed valid. However, there is not a ruling yet about whether Apple violates the Zhizhen's patent.

The bias in the comments here on the forum is appalling, but perhaps not surprising. It is important to look into the details to know what happens. For many people, when a US company is alleged to violate IP, it is always a victim of unfair trial or a victim of patent troll. When a Chinese company is alleged to violate IP, it is always Chinese stealing tech.
Well said. People love to get jingoistic and pick a fight. I think the part that will be difficult For the Chinese firm to prove is that the idea of a voice assistant isn’t new. It’s been part of science fiction for 50-100 years, and ever since Star Trek, 2001, and Alien, tech companies have been trying to make it a reality. So the “concept” of a voice assistant is, for practical purposes, almost public domain. I don’t know how much weight that sort of thing carries legally (I’m not a lawyer) but in the court of common sense it should mean that no one can “own” the basic idea. On the other hand, the technical way that idea is realized, that seems to me something that can and should be patentable. So while this Chinese company should, in the court of common sense, have no ownership of the idea of a virtual assistant, they certainly should be able to claim their technical implementation as their own. And if Apple is in violation of that technical solution, they should have to pay, or change their implementation.

The great big caveat on all of this is that I know the court of common sense doesn’t exist legally, and that there are all sorts of illogical aspects to real patent law that make it a nightmare. But in a perfect world...
 
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Well said. People love to get jingoistic and pick a fight. I think the part that will be difficult For the Chinese firm to prove is that the idea of a voice assistant isn’t new. It’s been part of science fiction for 50-100 years, and ever since Star Trek, 2001, and Alien, tech companies have been trying to make it a reality. So the “concept” of a voice assistant is, for practical purposes, almost public domain. I don’t know how much weight that sort of thing carries legally (I’m not a lawyer) but in the court of common sense it should mean that no one can “own” the basic idea. On the other hand, the technical way that idea is realized, that seems to me something that can and should be patentable. So while this Chinsee company should, in the court of common sense, have no ownership of the idea of a virtual assistant, they certainly should be able to claim their technical implementation as their own. And if Apple is in violation of that technical solution, they should have to pay, or change their implementation.

The great big caveat on all of this is that I know the court of common sense doesn’t exist legally, and that there are all sorts of illogical aspects to real patent law that make it a nightmare. But in a perfect world...

Absolutely agree with the argument that no company should own an idea. From my reading of the court ruling, the patent seems to be about how voice command is taken in by the virtue assistant and how that further enables information search and gaming. It appears that the point of innovation Zhizhen argues is their algorithm of language processing and filtering of information that allowed information being sent to proper server to further processing more efficiently. I do not have enough technical expertise to know how these are exactly done. But it does not seem to be just a patent of an idea.

Apple's contention is that a gaming function is the core function of the patent but is not declared in sufficient details in the patent filing. Zhizhen's argument is that the essential function of the patent is about human-machine interaction and the gaming function is a auxiliary application of the main invention. The legal battle so far seem to be focused on this technicality: whether the gaming function is the essential or auxiliary part of the patent. I am not a patent lawyer so this is just my understanding of reading the court ruling and related report.
 
They do. But they are biased against foreign companies. Local companies get full protection from the government.
Not true, if US companies submit patent applications within China directly, they are treated the same. China is under no obligation to protect patents filed in the US, and vice versa.
 
Not true, if US companies submit patent applications within China directly, they are treated the same. China is under no obligation to protect patents filed in the US, and vice versa.

Yep.
6E85D0A0-9FEB-4D50-845A-0C8DFACFC801.jpeg
 
If you actually read the article, you will see that Zhizhen applied for patent in 2004 and Apple acquired Siri in 2010. It is not until Oct 2011 Apple released a beta version of Siri on iPhone 4s. Zhizhen cannot copy something nonexistent.

So they applied for the patent in 2004 yet were they granted the patent? That will be the key to this case.
 
Any links to the patent document? Gut instinct tells me this is more political ransom since manufacturing is shifting away from China.
 
I had to re-read the ten comments above yours to find what you consider 'appalling.' Can't find it. Which of those comments do you consider 'appalling,' out of curiosity.
Moderators deleted the posts he was referring to.
 
Good Ol' China. Human-rights-abusing, repressive, murdering, spying, media-censoring, technology-stealing China. Jingoism my arse. China's record is atrocious. The faster Western companies can get out of there the better.
 
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I guess China realised that they need to cut the ties with US in order to be "truly great" as US business interests in China will influence its direction in some shape or form.
What I find interesting is that US administration seems to be actively helping China to cut those ties as if they actually work together to achieve a common objective.
 
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This case has been going on for many years. The fight centers around whether Zhizhen's patent is valid. Apple first sued to invalidate Zhizhen's patent claim in 2013. Beijing Court rejected Apple's claim and ruled that Zhizhen owns that patent. Then Apple appealed to Beijing Intermediate Court, which again rejected Apple's claim. Apple then appeals to Beijing High Court. Beijing High Court ruled that information about the patent provided by Zhizhen to the court is not in sufficient details and thus sided with Apple. Zhizhen then appeals to the Supreme Court and the court ruled that Zhizhen's patent is indeed valid. However, there is not a ruling yet about whether Apple violates the Zhizhen's patent.

The bias in the comments here on the forum is appalling, but perhaps not surprising. It is important to look into the details to know what happens. For many people, when a US company is alleged to violate IP, it is always a victim of unfair trial or a victim of patent troll. When a Chinese company is alleged to violate IP, it is always Chinese stealing tech.


Dude, it's simple: All they need to do is appeal to the Super-High Über Omega VII OmegaCRON Nacho-Supreme Elevated Court and then they'll be done with this.

Why they simply didn't dribble ball there in the first place, I have NO idea.
 
This is similar to another case few years ago between Apple vs another Chinese company which nobody knew existed. But the whole case was more like an attempt from the government wanted to get back at the US.
 
If you actually read the article, you will see that Zhizhen applied for patent in 2004 and Apple acquired Siri in 2010. It is not until Oct 2011 Apple released a beta version of Siri on iPhone 4s. Zhizhen cannot copy something nonexistent.

If you actually read the article, you will see that Zhizhen patented a chatbot, which is technically different from a voice assistant.
 
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