Apple's Facetime faces patent infringement suit in China

The iPhone maker is up against another lawsuit in China by a man who claims to hold a patent on a technology for a "voice network personal digital assistant."

 

Apple's Facetime is the latest technology stirring up legal complaints for the company in China.
A Taiwanese man who claims to hold a patent on a "voice network personal digital assistant" technology has filed a lawsuit against Apple over allegations that the technology is used in Facetime, says blog site MIC Gadget. The Intermediate People's Court in Zhenjiang confirmed the lawsuit and contacted Apple, but the company reportedly has not yet responded.

The Taiwanese man, known only as Lee, said he discovered the patent violation after buying an iPhone 4S. Working for a tech company, Lee claims to have come up with the idea for an Internet calling feature after he needed to contact people while traveling, MIC Gadget said. He also claims to have applied for a patent for the technology in 2003.
With so many companies trading patent infringement suits these days, it's difficult to know which ones are legitimate and which ones are specious. But either way, Apple has to deal with the suit, which kicks off with its first hearing in September.
Lee hasn't specified any financial amount in damages but wants Apple to stop the patent violation.
This isn't the first time Apple has run into legal trouble in China. The company recently had to pay out $60 million to settle a dispute with Proview Technology over the iPad trademark.

Taiwan university sues Apple over speech recognition patents

Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University has filed a patent infringement suit against Apple Inc in a U.S. court over the iPhone maker's Siri speech recognition system, which lets users place calls or perform other tasks with voice commands, and is seeking undisclosed damages.
Apple is also wrestling with Samsung Electronics Co Ltd in one of the biggest-ever technology patent trials as a lengthening list of foes big and small charges into legal battle with Apple over patents and trademarks for its popular mobile devices.
Earlier this month, Apple paid $60 million to Proview Technology (Shenzhen) to end a protracted legal dispute over the iPad trademark in China.
Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University said on Monday it had launched a suit alleging that Apple's use of Siri in its iPhone and future versions of its iPad infringes two U.S. patents it was granted in 2007 and 2010 that relate to voice-to-text technology.
The suit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, on Friday, it said.
"We filed that lawsuit in the Texas court because it processes faster and its rulings are usually in favor of patent owners and the compensations are usually higher," said Yama Chen, legal manager of National Cheng Kung, in the southern Taiwan city of Tainan.
He declined to disclose the amount of compensation the university was seeking but said any calculation would be based on Apple's U.S. sales of devices that use Siri.
An Apple representative in Asia could not immediately be reached for comment.
Chen said the university was also examining whether smartphone voice recognition systems used by Google Inc and Microsoft Corp have infringed its patents.
Two small Chinese companies have filed suits against Apple in China, with Jiangsu Xuebao charging trademark violations for the use of Snow Leopard as the name of its computer operating system and Zhi Zhen Internet Technology targeting the voice assistant functions used in Siri, Chinese media reports said in early July.