Siri has plenty of problems, but it just got one more: a lawsuit claiming Apple’s technology is infringing on patents belonging to another company.
The company in question, Advanced Voice Recognition Systems, is suing Apple for infringing on its previously held patent “Speech Recognition and Transcription Among Users Having Heterogeneous Protocols.”
Apple’s allegedly offending products include *deep breath* the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, HomePod, and Apple TV. Everything that runs Siri, basically!
“We believe our patents are among the most valuable of our assets and we intend to vigorously enforce our rights.” President and CEO of AVRS Walter Geldenhuys said in a statement. “AVRS offered Apple a license to the ‘730 Patent but Apple refused to take one and we felt that this left us no choice but to file a lawsuit.”
The complaint alleges that Apple has been willfully infringing on Advanced Voice Recognition Systems’ patent since it found out about it in 2013. This was around two years after Apple launched Siri with the iPhone 4s in 2011.
AVRS’s patent dates back to 2001 in some form, although it was seemingly only granted in its current state in 2009. You can read it here.
AVRS previously sued Microsoft in 2012. The company, which holds a number of patents, is looking for “reasonable royalty damages for Apple’s alleged unauthorized use of the ‘730 Patent and enhanced damages for its alleged infringement of the patent.”
Source: PRNewswire
