Shanghai Company Targets Apple's Siri for Patent Infringement
A Chinese company is suing Apple over alleged Siri patent infringement. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired 
A Shanghai-based company thinks Siri is a little too similar to their own voice-recognition software and is now suing Apple for alleged patent infringement over the technology.
Zhi Zhen Internet Technology developed a piece of software called "Xiao i Robot" that shares some similarities with Siri: It communicates through voice recognition, can answer questions, and can hold short conversations with the user. It's currently available for iOS, Android and Windows Live Messenger, and can also be found on products from Chinese telecom firms like China Mobile and China Telecom.
"We have a 100 million users in China, and many companies are using our product," company head Yuan Hui told IDG News in an interview.
Zhi Zhen was granted a patent for their personal assistant software in 2006. It first contacted Apple over the issue in May, and filed suit in Shanghai, China in June.
Just this week Apple settled a trademark dispute with another overseas company, Taiwanese PC and display maker Proview, over the iPad name in China. Apple ended up paying out $60 million to the cash-strapped electronics company to secure the name in the country.
Apple is also currently being sued for $80,000 by another Chinese company over the Snow Leopard name, which the company claims it owns the rights to in Chinese. Funnily enough, the company isn't even in the tech space — Jiangsu Snow Leopard Daily Chemical Co. is a household chemical company that makes products like toothpaste and laundry detergent. And Apple does not even use the Chinese characters Jiangsu is suing over in its marketing of Snow Leopard OS in China.
Original Page: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/shanghai-apple-siri-patent/
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