[youtube]http://youtu.be/Ku0H10_G1X4[/youtube]
Xiao and Robot is a software very similar to Siri implemented by Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), in its iDevices, and the company that developed it claims that Crab violates them some intellectual property rights. The Chinese claim that some components of the voice recognition system infringe their patents, but the system used in Siri is also implemented using Nuance technology, so Apple should be the only company involved, although Nuance is not were called in the process.
Apple appeared in a Shanghai court on Wednesday, accused by a Chinese firm of copying software used for the "Siri" personal assistant on its hugely popular iPhones. Shanghai's Zhizhen Network Technology Co. claims Apple infringed its patent for voice recognition software, and the two companies will exchange evidence at a pre-trial hearing, representatives of the Chinese firm said. Zhizhen says it patented its "Xiao i Robot" software in 2004, while Apple's Siri, which made its debut with the release of the iPhone 4S in 2011, was first developed in 2007. "The company will ask Apple to stop manufacturing and selling products using its patent rights, once Apple's infringement is confirmed," Si Weijiang, a lawyer representing Zhizhen, told AFP. "We don't exclude the possibility of demanding compensation in the future," he added.
The software behind Xiao i Robot is already used in televisions and applications dedicated to companies, but for now it does not seem to have been implemented in an application available on smartphones or tablets. The Chinese software was developed in 2004, 3 years before the start of the Siri development process, but that does not mean that its developers are necessarily right. Apple will try to defend its assistant in front of the Chinese judges, it will probably use Nuance's patents to do this, and it remains to be seen if it will be successful.
