Taiwanese university sues Apple for Siri-related patent infringement

Apple are being sued by a Taiwanese university over two patents related to speech recognition.

by Aaron Souppouris

Via Reuters (Yahoo! News) and Computerworld | Source court documents (scribd)

Jul 30, 2012, 12:28 PM UTC

apple lawsuit siri

Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) has filed a Texas lawsuit against Apple over two patents relating to speech recognition. The university claims that all Apple devices that have “voice activated assistant capabilities otherwise known as Siri” infringe upon its patents. Siri was first introduced with Apple’s iPhone 4S, but will be added to the third-generation iPad through an iOS 6 update.

According to Computerworld, the university's actions are in response to patent cases filed against Taiwanese manufacturers like HTC. Chen Xisan, the director of NCKU's legal department, told the site that "we want to help the local industry." Apple's litigation recently caused the HTC One X and Evo 4G LTE to be held at US customs for over two weeks. Chen added that NCKU is looking into other manufacturers' speech recognition methods, noting that "Apple is just an early step."

NCKU is not disclosing how much compensation it's seeking from Apple, but says that it would be based on "US sales of devices that use Siri." A spokesperson told Reuters that the university filed the lawsuit in Texas as "it processes faster, its rulings are usually in favor of patent owners, and the compensations are usually higher." We've reached out to Apple for comment on the litigation and will update you if we hear back.

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