peskymonkey-istockphoto-com-apple-1-1
12 March 2018Patents

Apple wrapped up in Siri patent suit

Apple’s famous voice assistant technology Siri is at the centre of another patent infringement lawsuit in the US.

Texas-based Portal Communications accused Apple of infringing three patents, at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, on Thursday, March 8.

The three patents, US numbers 7,376,645; 7,873,654; and 8,150,872, are all called “Multimodal natural language query system and architecture for processing voice and proximity-based queries”.

According to the claim, the patents were developed by inventor Dave Bernard and were assigned to Portal Communications.

“Software products existing before the priority date of the ‘645 patent … only allowed for limited voice-based user interaction with PCs, PDAs [personal digital assistants], and the like,” said the suit.

It added that these products allowed a user to perform voice-based functions and commands only after “time-consuming, and often inaccurate, imprecise, and unreliable, voice training”.

Siri is allegedly infringing the patents because the voice assistant can receive and process natural language queries and return the answers.

The Siri functionality is used in Apple’s iPhones, iPads, Watches and Mac computers.

Portal Communications is seeking triple damages and injunctive relief.

At the beginning of March, Siri found itself at the centre of another patent claim.

This time, Alphabet-owned Google was accused of infringing six patents relating to Siri, according to a lawsuit served by licensing company IPA Technologies.

Did you enjoy reading this story?  Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.

Today’s top stories

H&M takes graffiti artist to court in copyright dispute

Nando’s takes on chicken shop in trademark claim

Fujifilm wins US import ban against Sony

DLA Piper names TM and copyright chair in Washington, DC

Already registered?

Login to your account

To request a FREE 2-week trial subscription, please signup.
NOTE - this can take up to 48hrs to be approved.

Two Weeks Free Trial

For multi-user price options, or to check if your company has an existing subscription that we can add you to for FREE, please email Adrian Tapping at atapping@newtonmedia.co.uk


More on this story

Patents
1 March 2018   Alphabet-owned Google is allegedly infringing six patents relating to Siri, Apple’s famous voice assistant technology, according to a lawsuit served by a licensing company earlier this week.
Patents
9 April 2018   Several of Apple’s watch products have been accused of patent infringement because of their heart rate monitoring system.