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21 April 2016Patents

Apple to pay $24.9m in Siri settlement

Apple has settled its patent infringement case with US-based Dynamic Advances, agreeing to fork out $24.9 million, in a dispute which centred on the Siri voice recognition service.

The settlement was revealed in documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, April 18.

The lawsuit, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Dynamic Advances v Apple, was due to be heard at the US District Court for the Northern District of New York and concerned US patent number 7,177,798.

According to the US Patent and Trademark Office, the patent covers “natural language interface using a constrained intermediate dictionary of results.”

The patent is owned by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a private research university in New York, which licensed it to Dynamic.

The lawsuit claimed Siri infringes the ‘798 patent because it “processes natural language” in a way described in the patent.

Under the terms of the settlement, Apple will receive a patent licence from Dynamic and sign a three year agreement not to sue the company.

Dynamic's parent company Marathon Patent Group will receive $5 million of the total sum. Of the remaining funds, 50% will be handed to Rensselaer.

According to the SEC filing, Rensselaer has not agreed to the royalty rate proposed in the settlement and the issue may have to be resolved in arbitration.

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