According to Patently Apple, the first patent in question was filed in October 2005 and awarded in April 2010 and covers “a method and system for matching speech data.” The second covers a “speech recognition system” and was filed in December 2002 and awarded in September 2007. Siri was introduced in October 2011.
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The lawsuit covers all Apple products using Siri, meaning that it is currently limited to the iPhone 4S. It will also include the iPad once iOS 6 is released, as well as any new Siri-enabled devices announced in the future.
The university hasn’t specified damages yet, but made clear that as long as Siri was being used, those damages were mounting.
Siri has come under fire from other patent holders as well, including the Chinese company Zhizhen Network Technology over “a type of instant messaging chat bot system,” as well as a couple from consumers claiming it doesn’t perform as advertised.
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