Apple (NASDAQ:
AAPL
) is being sued by a university in Taiwan that claims the iPhone
maker has infringed on its patents. According to
Reuters
, National Cheng Kung University has filed a lawsuit against Apple
over its use of Siri. The university is not only concerned about
Siri's use in the iPhone 4S and the upcoming iPhone 5 -- it is also
worried about Siri's inclusion in future versions of the iPad. This
distinction is interesting because Siri will be coming to the
third-generation iPad later this year via iOS 6.
National Cheng Kung University alleges that it was granted two
U.S. patents -- one in 2007 and another in 2010 -- that relate to
voice-to-text technology. By creating and implementing Siri, the
university believes that Apple has infringed on these patents.
Reuters quoted Yama Chen, legal manager of National Cheng Kung
University, who said that the school filed the suit in the United
States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall
Division, because it, "processes faster and its rulings are usually
in favor of patent owners and the compensations are usually
higher."
The university has not revealed how much money it is seeking,
but according to Reuters, Chen said that any calculations, "would
be based on Apple's U.S. sales of devices that use Siri."
This is not the first time that a foreign organization has sued
Apple over patent infringement. Earlier this month, the China-based
Zhizhen Network Technology sued Apple, claiming that Siri
infringed on its instant messaging chat bot
system
.
Days after Apple
settled its trademark dispute
with Proview, another Chinese firm sued Apple
over the Snow Leopard trademark
.
In England, a British high court judge recently ruled that
Samsung did not infringe on Apple's designs because Samsung's
tablets
are not cool enough
. That same judge then recommended that Apple .
Later today, Apple and Samsung are set to begin
their biggest patent trial
in the United States.
Meanwhile, National Cheng Kung University is currently
investigating the smartphone voice recognition systems employed by
two of Apple's biggest competitors, Microsoft (NASDAQ: ) and Google
(NASDAQ: ), to see if they also infringe on the school's
patents.
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