The FINANCIAL — Chinese AI company Shanghai Zhizhen Intelligent Network Technology Co., Ltd., also known as Xiao-i is suing Apple on the grounds of patent infringement. Chinese company filed a formal lawsuit against Apple in Shanghai High People’s Court on 3rd of August 2020. This is not their first encounter over this patent. In a social media post, Xiao-i asked Apple “to stop patent infringement on its smart assistant product Siri, including but not limited to stopping the manufacturing, using, promising to sell, selling and importing products.”
A Shanghai company that was recently awarded a Chinese patent for a voice assistant similar to Apple Inc.’s Siri has filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Apple that, if successful, could prevent the American tech giant from selling many of its products in its most important market outside the U.S. Shanghai Zhizhen Network Technology Co. said Monday that it is suing Apple for an estimated 10 billion yuan ($1.43 billion) in damages in a Shanghai court, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The company 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 that it applied for in 2004 and was granted in 2009. The lawsuit marks the continuation of a row that has been ongoing for nearly a decade. Shanghai Zhizhen first sued Apple for patent infringement in 2012 regarding its voice recognition technology. In July, China’s Supreme People’s court ruled that the patent was valid, according to Reuters.
China is Apple’s second largest market outside of the US in terms of sales, opening a new flagship store in Beijing last month. It is also home to a number of its biggest suppliers. The tech giant reported revenue gains in every product category and geography in its most recent quarter last week, surprising Wall Street. It beat expectations on iPhone sales by $4bn, bringing in $26.42bn in revenue from the smartphone in the three months to the end of June, City A.M wrote.
Last week, Apple announced financial results for its fiscal 2020 third quarter ended June 27, 2020. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $59.7 billion, an increase of 11 percent from the year-ago quarter, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $2.58, up 18 percent. International sales accounted for 60 percent of the quarter’s revenue. The Board of Directors has approved a four-for-one stock split to make the stock more accessible to a broader base of investors. Each Apple shareholder of record at the close of business on August 24, 2020 will receive three additional shares for every share held on the record date, and trading will begin on a split-adjusted basis on August 31, 2020.
Recently, Tim Cook with Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google testified before Congress on July 29th to defend the size of their companies. Before the hearing started, President Trump tweeted on twitter: “If Congress doesn’t bring fairness to Big Tech, which they should have done years ago, I will do it myself with Executive Orders.”
In July of 2020,The General Court of the European Union issued its judgment in the Apple State Aid case annulling the European Commission Decision. In 2016 The European Commission concluded that Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13 billion to Apple and it was illegal under EU state aid rules. The Irish government welcomed judgement by the General Court of the European Union and said that the correct amount of Irish tax was charged and that Ireland provided no State aid to Apple. Read more.
