BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Beijing Higher People's Court ruled in favor of Apple Inc. on Tuesday over a Patent Re-Examination Board (PRB) and a Shanghai technology company for a patent on voice recognition technology.
The patent infringement dispute between Apple and Zhizhen goes back to June 2012, when Zhizhen, developer of speech recognition technology Xiao i Robot, filed a case against Apple for 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 a Shanghai court opened in 2013.
At the same time, Apple applied to the PRB to invalidate the Xiao i Robot patent. When the PRB supported Xiao i Robot, the U.S.-based tech giant sued the PRB and the Shanghai company.