A Beijing court has ruled against Apple, upholding the validity of a patent for a “type of instant messaging chat bot system” held by a Chinese company.
Zhizhen Internet Technology sued Apple back in 2012, claiming that virtual assistant Siri was infringing on the Chinese company’s patented idea for a so-called Xiaoi Bot. The Chinese bot was patented in 2004 — two years before the first Siri-related patent filing was made.
Tuesday’s Beijing court ruling paves the way for Zhizhen to continue its case against Apple for intellectual property infringement. Apple’s defense? That it never heard of Zhizhen’s technology prior to creating Siri.
“Unfortunately, we were not aware of Zhizhen’s patent before we introduced Siri (speech recognition technology) and we do not believe we are using this patent,” a Beijing-based Apple spokeswoman said following the verdict.
Apple says its next move is to take the case to the Beijing Higher People’s Court, according to Chinese newspaper The People’s Daily. In the meantime, Cupertino claims it remains “open to reasonable discussions with Zhizhen.”
Given that Siri is likely to be an increasingly large part of Apple’s interface plans going forward, this could prove to be a spanner in the works.
Source: Reuters