Taiwan university sues Apple over speech recognition patents

Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University has launched a suit alleging that Apple's use of Siri in its iPhone and future versions of its iPad infringes two U.S. patents it was granted in 2007 and 2010 that relate to voice-to-text technology. The suit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division. Earlier this month, Apple paid $60 million to Proview Technology (Shenzhen) to end a protracted legal dispute over the iPad trademark in China. Yama Chen, legal manager of National Cheng Kung declined to disclose the amount of compensation the university was seeking but said any calculation would be based on Apple's U.S. sales of devices that use Siri. Chen said the university was also examining whether smartphone voice recognition systems used by Google Inc and Microsoft Corp have infringed its patents.