China's Xiao-i Sues Apple for $1.43 Billion Over Siri AI Infringement (venturebeat.com) 70
Chinese artificial intelligence company Shanghai Zhizhen Intelligent Network Technology, also known as Xiao-i, has filed a lawsuit against Apple, alleging it has infringed on Xiao-i's patents. From a report: Xiao-i is calling for 10 billion yuan ($1.43 billion) in damages and demands that Apple cease "manufacturing, using, promising to sell, selling, and importing" products that infringe on the patent, it said in a social media post. Xiao-i argued that Apple's voice-recognition technology Siri infringes on a patent it applied for in 2004 and was granted in 2009.
Great summary (Score:2)
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Re: Great summary (Score:2)
I read the article. Thereâ(TM)s no further information. No patent number, no description. Apple will probably win a random patent lawsuit like this, since itâ(TM)s probably an indefensible patent, or buy the company off.
Re: Great summary (Score:5, Insightful)
I read the article. Thereâ(TM)s no further information. No patent number, no description. Apple will probably win a random patent lawsuit like this, since itâ(TM)s probably an indefensible patent, or buy the company off.
If this wasn't a Chinese company suing them in China, I'd agree. But think about this:
In July, China’s Supreme People’s court ruled that the patent was valid.
Of course they did. This is China and they aren't going to side with a foreign company.
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Well shit, the ChiComs legal system said it, it must be the only correct interpretation.
Come on China, this is some Trump level twitter posts nonsense.
Chinar should stick to trying to claim the Entire South China Sea, because it has the work 'Chinar' in it.
Re: Great summary (Score:2)
Chinar?
Re: Great summary (Score:2)
Obviously a typo. Nevertheless, they would just file a complaint within the WTO. Worst case, Apple shuts off Siri for Chinese consumers and watch them bitch and shout at their own stupid government. Maybe Apple could send a helpful push notification every time someone says âoehey Siriâ: âoewe have shut off features of your Mac/phone. This is due to the CCPs ruling that an overly broad patent is valid (we think it isnâ(TM)t). If you want functionality restored, help us by calling Xi Jinpi
Re: Great summary (Score:1)
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ChiCom? I think the poster is stuck in 1979.
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We *know* Apple are using our AI Mandarin voice recognition technology. We stole it from them in the first place!
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Or perhaps they'll decide that their local companies are now developed enough that they *like* that price.
Or this could be decided in response to Trump's extortion of TikTok.
Or...it could be very poor reporting of a perfectly valid complaint.
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They're probably upset at the TikTok and also Apple moving a quarter of their iPhone manufacturing to India.
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I was under the impression that they were allowed to register "voice recognition" in general. Isn't that how parent laws work?
No.
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Only in the Eastern Texas Patent Court https://www.bloomberg.com/opin... [bloomberg.com]
Didn't Siri come from SRI? (Score:3)
If so then there will be prior patents.
Re: Didn't Siri come from SRI? (Score:3)
Yep.
https://www.sri.com/hoi/siri/ [sri.com]
Not just STI but DARPA funded as well. The Chinese company may be running a squeeze play on Apple over the Chinese market. And given all the part sourcing from China they may have Apple by the short hairs.
But the us govt isn't going to be happy about China using any DARPA funded patent developments as a result.
This is just going to be tit for tat given Huawei et al.
I'm liking the TikTok squeeze play. The Chinese outrage that the us regulators are forcing Chinese company's
Re: Didn't Siri come from SRI? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think most people are having a hard time waking up to the fact that we are at the start of a new cold war. Right now we are at the same stage the West and Soviets were in the late 40's. Cooperation between sides is just now ending and divisions are growing. The next few years will entail the painful withdrawal of economies bifurcating. Within the next decade China and the west will isolate from one another. We will slip back into the uneasy stalemate of a bipolar world (heh). We will likely see a spate of proxy wars again, probably in places like Africa and South America. A new analog to NATO will form in the Pacific as smaller nations who don't want to be pushed around by China band together against their common enemy. History is repeating itself.
Re: Didn't Siri come from SRI? (Score:5, Insightful)
LOL. That cold war has been going on for a couple decades now, it's just that China was the only one fighting it. The West didn't believe it was a war, so were willingly handing over all their tech secrets to China for the carrot of future sales in China (which of course never materialized). That contract to build a high-speed rail system in China [wikipedia.org] that Siemens won? Siemens wisely refused to just hand over the manufacturing technology, but foolishly agreed to manufacture the trains in China. During off hours when the manufacturing plant was closed, China simply went in, opened up all the manufacturing equipment, and measured and copied all the technology that Siemens wasn't willing to hand over. A few years later, China booted Siemens out, and began manufacturing the trains themselves. When the attacker has physical access to your systems, your security is nil.
For two decades China has been keeping the value of the Yuan artificially low. Normally when a country starts to develop, its currency value rises. But not in China's case. Not letting your currency rise reduces your purchasing power, and stagnates your citizens' real income. So why do it? To keep Chinese labor prices artificially low, so Western companies would continue to put manufacturing in China, where China could beg/borrow/copy/steal as many secrets as they could.
I think Trump is an idiot and a terrible president. But one thing he's gotten right is treating China as if in a hostile negotiation. All the previous Presidents have done everything they could to placate China, for fear of upsetting U.S.-China trade and tanking the U.S. economy prior to re-election. But even if for the wrong reasons, Trump has been facing off against China the way we always should have been. You see, the notion that companies should play fair and respect each others' secrets is a distinctly western construct. It's not present in the East. You may have run across it in anime and manga, where a new hiree is required to spy on their previous employer. That'd be a faux pas in the West, but is completely normal in the East. The eastern attitude towards trade secrets is that its your responsibility to protect them, and the responsibility of competing companies to try to steal them. You cannot rely on patent law or the western notion that it's "wrong" to steal secrets to protect you. What's been going on in China since the 1990s has been the chickens setting up manufacturing in the foxes' den, completely oblivious to the fact that foxes eat chickens.
Re:Great summary (Score:4, Informative)
According to the original reporting from Reuters [reuters.com], Apple claims the patent has to do with games and instant messaging in ways that aren't relevant to Siri. It even went so far as to have independent appraisers who had been certified by China's Supreme People's Court sign off on the fact that Siri doesn't make use of the patent, but I have yet to see the actual patent (though, even if I did, I suppose it'd be in Chinese and thus rather difficult for me to peruse).
Apparently this is a continuation of a case that's been going on since 2012 [cnet.com]. Apple filed back then to have the patent invalidated, and it was, but then that ruling went through 8 years of appeals. Finally, the Supreme People's Court ruled last month that the patent was actually valid, leading to a renewed suit for a larger dollar amount.
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Great timing as Apple moves 25% of iPhone manufacturing to India. Sounds like usual state corporate hardball.
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Apple is also reported to be seeking Chinese-based suppliers for aspects of their supply that are currently exclusively outside of China. I suspect they're reading the tea leaves and expect they will soon find themselves in a position where the only way to reach the Chinese market will be with Chinese-built parts while at the same time the only way to reach the US will be with non-Chinese-based parts. As such, they're seeking to set up parallel operations: anything not currently in China needs to be duplica
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Re:Get fucked ccp (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Get fucked ccp (Score:4, Insightful)
It's our fault the CCP exists as it does today because we opened our economic doors to them.
Well, depend on what you mean by "fault". The US betrayed Taiwan ROC and opened up the PRC because it wanted to have a strong ally to fight against the Soviet Union the number two superpower back then. So the fault is American greed to absolute monopolize this planet.
The US has a long history of growing its own enemies -- Saddam Hussein, bin Laden, Japan, China; because while the US has been the number one superpower, it couldn't and still can't defeat the number two superpower without the helps of the puppets. Today, the Soviet Union has been replaced by Russia with the same military threat as before, so the US didn't really accomplish destroying SU. China, taking Russian weapon technologies on the fire sale, has risen to be the number two superpower with 1.4 billion people with second strongest and most fast growing major economy. The US is about to make the same mistake by partnering with India and Vietnam; 10-30 years later, the US will whine about India/Vietname and launch trade against them.
Those same doors can and should be shut again.
History repeats because of American greed. To the rest of world, poor people will find ways to rip the benefits -- 1.4 billion Chinese have been lifted out of poverty because of the US-Soviet cold war, and the 1.4 billion Indian will be too 30 years later.
Communist countries should only allowed to interact with other communist countries.
While Americans are still brainwashed to believe China being communistic.
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Wow dont know where to start, so I'll work it from the bottom up.
100% China is a communist government. The people have no say in anything, and of course if they do they "disappear". Only they don't have Siberia to lose people in.
Is there American greed, yes. Is there greed in every country, yes. It's almost like you're saying all the worlds greed are belong to US. (pung very much so intended) A broad brush for a very complex problem. But don't kid yourself. Do some simple google searches on how the
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The people have no say in anything, and of course if they do they "disappear".
If you still believe in that, you really knows nothing about China and have never visited there.
Besides these are not the defining characteristic of communism. For example, they can happen in a religious state.
China is a communist government.
Nope, it was closer to communistic before the 1980s, since then it has been moving further and further away from communism. China today is full of small highly competing businesses (*)(**), whereas your USA is controlled by duoploies in every industry. China is more capitalistic whereas the US has fak
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Besides these are not the defining characteristic of communism. For example, they can happen in a religious state.
Communism is very much like a religious state, it's the religion of the state, worshiping the Great Leader (hence why communist states don't want competition from more traditional religions). Thou shall only worship the Great Leader.
Just Chinese vs Soviet communism (Score:2)
Nope, it was closer to communistic before the 1980s, since then it has been moving further and further away from communism. China today is full of small highly competing businesses ...
Not really.
There is still the fact that the system is socialist in the sense that the state has defacto control of the means of production, all these companies and entrepreneurs.
There is still the fact that the system is communist in the sense that the state owns the means of production of anything it deems important and strategic, state owned enterprises (far more than four industries as claimed).
There is still the fact that the system is communist in the sense that the companies are expected to structu
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Nixon thought he could liberalize China (Score:2)
... opened up the PRC because it wanted to have a strong ally to fight against the Soviet Union the number two superpower back then. So the fault is American greed to absolute monopolize this planet.
Nope, the theory of Nixon and Kissinger was that with greater interaction with the west Communist China would liberalize politically. It was far more removing an enemy than creating an ally; more the removal of an ally of the soviets which is something different than acquiring an ally for yourself. This failed theory has been the underpinning of US policy with China for the last 50+ years.
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the theory of Nixon and Kissinger was that with greater interaction with the west Communist China would liberalize politically
After China successfully detonated nuclear bombs and launched satellites? By betraying your then "friend" Taiwan ROC? This "theory" is just political marketing messages for themselves and the USA in order to brainwash you into believing the US is as saint as Jesus.
Oh by the way, China has indeed become more -- much more -- liberalized and freer, something you have not been informed, and prosperous, but that's because of the death of Mao and the economic+political reforms of Deng Xiaoping.
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the theory of Nixon and Kissinger was that with greater interaction with the west Communist China would liberalize politically
After China successfully detonated nuclear bombs and launched satellites?
Yes, that seems a good time to better inform a cut off and ill-informed and cult-like society, sort of like today's North Korea. Note this was occurring during the cultural revolution. A time when Chinese gov't was pretty f'd up, killing tens of millions of its own people.
By betraying your then "friend" Taiwan ROC?
LOL. Betrayal as in continued arming of Taiwan, of continued commitment to defend Taiwan, of an effort to make an enemy of Taiwan less belligerent?
Are you under some sort of delusion that the Taiwanese and the US were planning to invade
Cool... (Score:4, Insightful)
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They seem to be a private company, which goes against the principles of communism, so I'm not sure how you can call them communist other than as a reactionary false statement.
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Re:Cool... (Score:5, Funny)
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FYI, this is for infringement in China. And if you think an American company is going to get a fair shake in China's system, then I've got a bridge to sell you too.
Strike that. The Chinese already own the bridge.
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You seem to not understand how Communism controls almost all businesses behind the scenes in China. This company is #1 in surveillance technology, primary shareholder is Fu Liquan, who is 100% in the Dear Leader's back pocket.
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OK commie.
Sure, capitalists are now stooping to stealing from communists ... sad face :-(
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*Crosses legs and covers kernel with both hands*
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I'm sure it will be just as fair as that American court was when examining Apple's patent claims against Samsung.
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Given the readily available details....yeah, it has to be decided purely on the basis of existing biases.
Chinese company suing over patent infringement? (Score:5, Interesting)
What's next? The Chinese government accusing the U.S. of human rights violations? *guffaw*
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No worries, we're working on rectifying that situation.
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What's next? The Chinese government accusing the U.S. of human rights violations? *guffaw*
Already has been doing so [theguardian.com] every year [xinhuanet.com], because the US has been [wikipedia.org] and is violating [theatlantic.com] human rights [theweek.com]. (but China only does so after the US launch the attack on the issues, every year.)
It looks like news to you only because you, like most Americans, are either reading biased US news coverage, insensitive [wikipedia.org] to your own country's real guild, or both, while falsifying and exaggerating the problems of your enemies.
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Some of them are long-standing problems that are currently being addressed -- much to the chagrin of racist assholes in this country.
One of them is about enemy combatants and not in the same category, and is a totally different discussion.
None of which excuses the Chinese government in any way shape or form for the bullshit things that they do to people, and you
Personal voice assistant patent (Score:2)
Uh-huh (Score:2)
>China
>Patent
LMAO
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maybe OP was implying it's laughable that it's a one-way issue. They copy and rob other countries' IP blind, but now they want a patent enforced? Hypocrisy.
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Apple stole our shitty tech (Score:2)
I'm not sure why someone would claim that Apple stole their AI technology for Siri. Siri isn't exactly a shining example of working AI.
China company (Score:2)
Actual information about the patent (Score:2)
The patent in English https://patents.google.com/patent/CN100518070C/en?oq=+200410053749 [google.com]
From my reading of the patent and the analysis, this looks at least reasonable, and much better than many US patent decisions.
apple steals form everyone (Score:1)