For all the heat it dishes out elsewhere in the world, Apple has had a hard time catching a break in China -- between having to settle with Proview
over the iPad trademark and a recent, smaller dispute over Snow
Leopard, it's been primarily on the defensive. The latest rear-guard
action is in Shanghai, where Zhi Zhen Internet Technology claims that Siri's
voice command charms infringe on a patent used for the Xiao i Robot
voice system on phones and the web. We're just hearing about the
lawsuit now, but Zhi Zhen insists that it's been long in the making with
accusations filed in June and a patent application dating all the way
back to 2004. Apple is characteristically silent on how it will tackle
the case. We suspect it'll be more than a little eager to fight back in
court: in addition to the lawsuit presenting a very conspicuous
roadblock to bringing Siri to China with iOS 6, it comes from a company that hasn't been shy about plastering the Siri icon all over its home page.
No comments:
Post a Comment