Today, Apple has a hearing in a Shanghai court after a local Chinese company accused the Silicon-based Company of infringing a patent in what concerns Siri, the personal assistant revealed along with the release of iPhone 4S.
The Chinese Company, Zhizhen Network Technology Co complains about Apple copying its patent for the voice recognition assistant, also known as Siri. The company will present its proofs in this respect, and Apple will do the same.
For those of you who do not know, Siri, the voice recognition assistant was launched in 2011, along with the release of the iPhone 4S, the first iDevice containing this software. Siri is able to perform multiple tasks such as writing emails, texts, searching for locations and places, initiating phone calls or browsing the internet. All these tasks are initiated by voice commands.
Apparently, Zhizhen Company developed similar software somewhere in 2003, and they were granted a patent in 2006. This means that the Xiao i or the “small i” robot, the alternative of Siri was approved first, before Apple’s personal assistant. Apparently, Xiao i, the Shanghai personal assistant is pretty similar with Siri in what concerns the activation tones as well as the icon design.
The Shanghai Company will ask Apple to stop manufacturing and selling their iDevices, which offer the well-debated personal assistant. In the same time, according to a lawyer designated by Zhizhen, Apple will be forced to pay future compensation for this patent infringement.
The current lawsuit intended by a Chinese company against the Fruit Company is only one of the many others launched by China against Apple. In the past, Apple was sued for copying the iPad trademark. At that point, Apple paid $60 million compensation to the Chinese computer maker, Shenzhen Proview Technology for settling down in the iPad battle. This means that Apple has a bad time in China, which was supposed to become one of the largest marketplaces for the giant tech company.
However, all those previous lawsuits intended against Apple by various Chinese companies and this includes the current Zhizhen patent infringement lawsuit, might represent only a method to prevent Apple to expand its line of products in this eastern part of the world. A short time ago, Chinese media tried to change people’s opinion in what concerns Apple’s products. However, Apple’s popularity
The full hearing for the lawsuit intended by Zhizhen Network Technology Co against Apple is scheduled in July, the current year.
