Taiwan university sues Apple over iPhone patents
TAIPEI, Taiwan – Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University has filed a suit against US tech giant Apple, claiming the company’s Siri intelligent assistant has infringed on two of its patents.
Apple introduced the voice-activated assistant technology when launching the iPhone 4S in 2011.
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But Cheng Kung University in south Taiwan’s Tainan city said the technology infringes two patents held by one of its research teams, both related to speech recognition.
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The team is led by Wang Jhing-fa, a professor who specialises in chip designs and neural networks facilitating speech and pattern recognition.
“We filed a lawsuit against Apple at a Federal district court in Texas Friday,” Yama Chen, a legal affairs manager at the university, told Agence France-Presse.
Apple Taiwan was not immediately available for comment.
Earlier this month, Chinese technology firm Shanghai Zhizhen Network Technology Co Ltd filed a similar claim against Apple over Siri.
The company’s Xiao i Robot software, patented in 2004, operates in a similar way to Apple’s personal assistant and works on the iOS and Android operating systems.
Greater China — which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan — has become Apple’s fastest-growing region, with revenues second only to the United States.
