Xiao i takes Apple to court over Siri voice assistant
Staff Reporter 2013-05-01 16:19
The Xiao i Robot demonstrated at an exhibition in Shanghai. (Photo/CFP)
Xiao i Robot of Shanghai has spent the last year trying to bring Apple to court, and finally succeeded at the end of March when the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court held a preliminary hearing regarding the company's claim that Apple's Siri voice assistant has violated its intellectual property rights.
Xiao i Robot's developer, Zhi Zhen Network Technology, claims that Siri, featured on Apple mobile devices from the iPhone 4S onward, has infringed on its patent ZL200410053749.9, which it owns and used to create its own voice assisted computer system.
Yuan Hui, company CEO who doubles as the legal representative for Zhi Zhen, said the patent fight was launched to protect Xiao i's operating system. The two systems share a similar operating model, which makes Apple the main target of the company's efforts to protect its patents, Yuan said.
The company formally launched in 2003 after the SARS outbreak in China which kept the company's founders out of reach of their customers. The team was inspired to make Xiao i so that they could talk with their customers when they were unable to visit them in person, according to Yuan.
To help with communications, the company created an intelligent robot and planted it in the then-popular MSN instant messaging system. "It was the time when everyone hid at home, communicating with each other with MSN and QQ online. So at once our robot became very popular," Yuan recalls.
The Journal of Chinese Entrepreneurship reported that despite the company's rising popularity on chat platforms, it had trouble promoting itself to a broader audience. At the time, many of their clients did not know what Xiao i could eventually be capable of doing, Yuan said.
The biggest breakthrough came in 2006 when Microsoft formed a partnership with Xiao i, which led to the successful development of a robot development platform named iBot.
Within a short time, more than 70,000 software developers from over 100 countries had joined the platform, creating innovative products like movie and travel robots. Xiao i was becoming smarter as more people worked on it, Yuan said.
In 2009, the company began exploring and developing a business to business application for iBot, and just when the company was ready to expand into the broader field, Siri appeared and pushed them out of the market. With similar designs, and similar functions, Xiao i was left with little choice but to try to protect its decade-long investment, Yuan says.
