Beijing Higher People's Court explained why it asked a Chinese government agency to review a company's voice recognition patent validity, which has a dispute with Apple Inc.
On Tuesday, the court ruled in favor of Apple for a patent case. It said the voice recognition patent of Shanghai Zhizhen Network Technology Co. Ltd. should be declared invalid and asked the Patent Review Committee under the State Intellectual Property Office to review it.
Jiao Yan, chief judge in this case, told Xinhua that Zhizhen's patent specification did not explain all technologies used in the invention. According to China's patent law, specification should allow common technical personnel in related fields to practice the technologies easily.
Meanwhile, Jiao said the patent claims failed to clearly define the limits of exactly what the patent does, and does not, cover.
Apple declined to comment on the court judgement on Wednesday.
The court decision was made after Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court ruled last July against Apple.
The dispute between Apple and Zhizhen dates back to June 2012, when Zhizhen, developer of speech recognition technology Xiao i Robot, filed a case against Apple for alleged infringement of intellectual property rights, claiming that Siri technology violates its patent for "a type of instant messaging chat robot system."
Xiao i Robot, which began in 2003 as a chat bot for MSN, Yahoo Messenger and other chat programs, has expanded to iOS and Android, where it bears a striking similarity to Siri.
Siri, on the other hand, made its debut with the release of the iPhone 4S in 2011. It was first developed in 2007 by Siri Inc., a start-up company acquired by Apple in 2010.
No verdict was given after trials at Shanghai courts.
At the same time, Apple applied to the Patent Review Committee to invalidate the Xiao i Robot patent. When the committee supported Xiao i Robot, the U.S.-based tech giant followed the administrative appeals process.
