JURISDICTION REPORT: CHINA
APPLE DEFENDS SIRI IN COURT Stephen Yang
Peksung Intellectual Property Ltd
On July 2, 2013, Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court held a public hearing of a patent infringement case in which Zhizhen Technology Inc of Shanghai sued Apple Inc and Apple Computer Trading (Shanghai) Co Ltd. Te alleged infringing item in the dispute is Siri, the intelligent chatting system installed on many Apple products, such as the iPhone 4S and iPad.
Zhizhen claimed that the defendants infringed Chinese patent
No.200410053749.9, entitled a Chatting Robot System, filed on August 13, 2004 and granted on July 22, 2009. Tis patent was initially filed in the name of Shanghai Incesoſt Co Ltd and later assigned to Zhizhen. A patented product has been marketed in China as the ‘little i robot’.
As of January 2012, Apple started selling products containing Siri in China. Te plaintiff Zhizhen held that the Siri system installed on the iPhone 4S and iPad uses the patented technology and its technical solution falls within the scope of the claims of Chinese patent No.200410053749.9. Zhizhen requested the court to order Apple Inc to stop making, selling and using the infringing products and Apple Computer Trading (Shanghai) to stop selling and using the infringing products.
During the court hearing, Zhizhen showed that Siri and ‘little i robot’ produced the same results by connecting a Siri client and a ‘little i robot’ client to the ‘little i robot’ server and inputting the same information. It was also reported that during the court hearing, Zhizhen also provided an infringement judiciary appraisal report, which was done by experts and concluded infringement of the patent in question.
However, Apple claimed that Siri is a form of intelligent assistant, which helps users with their daily tasks, whereas the ‘little i robot’ is a robot that deals with chatting and games, and that the two systems are completely different in essence. Apple further argued that the claims of the patent in question comprise parts such as an intelligent server, query server and game server, which were not present in Siri, and that Siri has only a single server. Terefore, Siri does not have all the features of the claims and does not fall in the scope of the claims.
Apple also questioned the infringement judiciary appraisal report and argued that it was done by computer experts who are not IP experts and that the ‘black box’ method used to show the two systems work in the same way was not proper.
Apple further alleged that the claims of the patent in question were not clear as to its protection scope and it was reported that Apple filed an invalidation request with the Patent Re-examination Board (PRB) in November 2012 which requested the PRB to declare the Chinese patent No.200410053749.9 invalid. According to Chinese practice, infringement
www.worldipreview.com
and validity are handled separately. As in this case, the infringement case is in Shanghai and the validity is at the PRB which is located in Beijing, and the PRB’s decision is appealable to courts in Beijing.
It was reported that because of the complexity of the case, the investigation of its facts did not finish aſter a full day of court hearing and that the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court would hear the case again on another date.
Patent applications soar In the first half of 2013, the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) received 1.012 million patent application, representing an 18.1 percent increase from the same period in 2012. Tis includes 316,000 invention patent applications, 397,000 utility model patent applications and 299,000 design patent applications, an increase of 22.5 percent, 25.6 percent and 5.7 percent, respectively. Among all invention patent applications, 81 percent were filed by domestic applicants and 19 percent were filed by foreign applicants; the figures increased 27.4 percent and 5.3 percent from last year, respectively.
Stephen Yang is a partner and patent attorney at Peksung Intellectual Property. He can be contacted at:
yyong@peksung.com
World Intellectual Property Review September/October 2013 165
“APPLE ALSO QUESTIONED THE INFRINGEMENT JUDICIARY APPRAISAL REPORT AND ARGUED THAT IT WAS DONE BY COMPUTER EXPERTS WHO ARE NOT IP EXPERTS.”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196