National Cheng Kung University has filed a suit against US tech giant Apple Inc, claiming the company’s Siri intelligent assistant has infringed on two of its patents.
Apple introduced the voice-activated assistant technology when it launched the iPhone 4S last year.
However, Cheng Kung University in Greater Tainan said the technology infringes two patents held by one of its research teams, both related to speech recognition.
The team is led by Wang Jhing-fa (王駿發), a professor who specializes in chip design and neural networks facilitating speech and pattern recognition.
“We filed a lawsuit against Apple at a federal district court in Texas on Friday,” said Chen Yama (陳錫山), a legal affairs manager at the university.
Apple Taiwan was not immediately available for comment.
Earlier this month, Chinese technology firm Shanghai Zhizhen Network Technology Co (上海智臻網路) 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 has become Apple’s fastest-growing region, with revenues second only to the US.
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