“A Beijing court has ruled against Apple Inc by upholding the validity of a patent held by a Chinese company, clearing the way for the Chinese company to continue its own case against Apple for infringing intellectual property rights,” Paul Carsten reports for Reuters.
“Apple had taken Shanghai-based Zhizhen Internet Technology and China’s State Intellectual Property Office to court to seek a ruling that Zhizhen’s patent rights to a speech recognition technology were invalid,” Carsten reports. “But the Beijing First Intermediate Court on Tuesday decided in Zhizhen’s favour, the People’s Daily state newspaper reported on Wednesday.”
“‘Unfortunately, we were not aware of Zhizhen’s patent before we introduced Siri (speech recognition technology) and we do not believe we are using this patent,’ said a Beijing-based Apple spokeswoman in an emailed statement to Reuters,” Carsten reports. ‘While a separate court considers this question [Apple has appealed to Beijing Higher People’s Court], we remain open to reasonable discussions with Zhizhen,’ the spokeswoman said.”
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