Siri is having a little difficulty
understanding my snorking and guffawing just now.
Apple has lost the first stage of a patent infringement battle in China over its voice-controlled assistant Siri – after a Beijing court ruled a speech-recognition patent held by the Chinese firm that launched the lawsuit is valid. The iPhone maker was arguing with both Shanghai-based Zhizhen Network Technology and the State …
This post has been deleted by its author
"They don't like it up'em Captain Mainwaring sir."
Indeed it appears that Cupertino (judging by their own choice of words in response, a choice that indicates strongly that they know that they are on a sticky wicket) does not "like it up'em". Words like "hoist upon ones own petard come to mind".
It nice to see litigious Apple take an hit on this but like most patents like this have prior art. Voice recognition has been a staple of SF for as long as I have been around and longer.
You should not be able to patent solutions to problems anyone with a bit of thought (slide to unlock) could have come up with.
Vlingo founder Michael Phillips (a victim of trollish patent litigation which consumed his company just as Apple was courting a partnership with Vlingo for its voice recognition invention for use in SIri) must be giggling into his sleeve over this. Apple summarily dumped Vlingo and left it to founder in the patent troll storms, choosing to align with the trolls that so efficiently sunk it.
What goes around comes around.