Post 18: Apple’s Siri got into Trouble in China

The news from cnet titled “Apple lands in Chinese court to battle Siri patent suit”.  The pretrial was held on Wednesday of this week (PST). The case pits Apple against Zhizhen Network Technology, which claims a patent for the voice-recognition software used by Siri. Zhizhen Network Technology’s claim is related to the patent number ZL200410053749.9 for a chat Robot. The chat robots can receive user statement and give intelligent answers through artificial intelligence server and database. Zhizhen Network believed that, by comparison, Siri on iPhone4S used Zhizhen’s patented network technology illegally, and its implementations fell into the scope of protection of a patent, ZL200410053749.9, for invention. According to Xinhua, Zhizhen Netwrok had sent a letter to Apple trading company and Apple, and tried to resolve this dispute through consultations, but they did not reply. Later on, Zhizhen sued to court, requested Apple immediately stop manufacturing, selling and using any products that infringed patent number ZL200410053749.9.

At the same time, Apple defensed that Zhizhen Network did not clearly descript its patent protection range, which led its franchise protection range undetermined, yet Zhizhen did not provide full effective evidence that proved Siri in iPhone4S fell into its patent right requirements of protection range. Thus, Apple thought two technology features were different and Siri application did not constitute infringement. Apple has mad invalid declaration request, but the Court has not given the permit yet.

I find this case is interesting because this is the first time the “littlee secretary”, Siri, encounter the patent infringement disputes. However, Sir is an essential feature for smartphone, which allows the phone turned into a “talking cellphone”. After Apple’s launch, Siri has become one of Apple’s key product research and development in the future. Siri has been used in many Apple’s new products, such as iPhone5, iPadmini. However, Zhizhen claimed that they committed to the development and application of this technology as early as 2003 and the patented technology has been widely used in Microsoft’s MSN robot, Expo Haibao robot and so on. Actually, Zhizhen started the lawsuit proceeding 3 days after the sale of Apple iPhone 4S; however, since the case involve U.S company, which has to serve through diplomacy. Thus, the case is officially put on schedule recent days.

So far, what seems to be he biggest issue of the case?

I think technical plan comparison will be the big argument between these tow companies. It is said that Siri technology has gotten the international patens, while Zhizhen has applied for patents in China. Since the court is held in China, I think it is really worth to see how the Court judges the case, and which patent law the Court will use. Surprisingly, the plaintiff’s petition did not involve compensation. After reading the whole story, I think compare to infringement, it most likely that these two companies start the voice software invention independently, but they released the technology at different time and location. I believe it did happen to some companies. That’s why I want to share this case. I think the case might become an example for the future similar cases.