Apple's Siri nailed with patent suit over voice-to-text

The plaintiff, a Taiwan university, filed the lawsuit in a Texas court because "its rulings are usually in favor of patent owners."Apple's virtual personal assistant Siri has been smacked with yet another lawsuit.

This time around, Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University filed a lawsuit against Apple on Friday, charging the company with violating patents it holds related to voice-to-text technology. The university says that it acquired two patents in 2007 and 2010 in the U.S., and believes that Siri violates those.

Apple is certainly no stranger to Siri lawsuits. Over the last year, the company has been hit with everything from class-action suits complaining of the service's performance to infringement. Earlier this month, Shanghai-based voice application developer Zhizhen Network Technology sued Apple for allegedly infringing a patent it holds related to "a type of instant messaging chat bot system" it calls Xiaoi Bot.

Speaking to Reuters, which was first to report on the lawsuit, the National Cheng Kung's legal manager, Yama Chen, said that it decided to file the suit in a Texas court "because it processes faster and its rulings are usually in favor of patent owners and the compensations are usually higher."

Chen didn't say how much the University is looking to score in the lawsuit, but acknowledged that the damages are based on sales of Siri-equipped devices.

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