Chinese firm Shanghai Zhizhen, which was recently awarded a local patent for a voice assistant similar to Apple’s Siri, has filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against the iPhone maker that, if successful, could prevent Apple from selling its smartphones and other products in China, its second most important market.
Shanghai Zhizhen claimed that Apple’s devices had infringed its Siri virtual assistant patent, and the company is suing Apple for approximately 10 billion yuan in damage (about $1.4 billion), the Wall Street Journal reported.
As a component of the lawsuit, Shanghai Zhizhen asked Apple to prevent the sale, production and use of what allegedly infringed its patent.
Apple integrates Siri into almost all of your devices, adding your Mac computers, iPhones, iPads, Apple Watch, Apple TV and your Homepod speaker.
China is Apple’s largest foreign market in terms of sales, it has faced a significant festival of local brands in the country, adding Huawei, which has surpassed Apple to become the world’s largest smartphone seller.
The legal action opposed to Apple comes at a time when an industrial war between the United States and China has heated considerably, attracting the great generations of any of the countries.
The Journal’s report notes that if an initial court order is filed, a local court may simply make the decision to prohibit Apple from promoting products containing Siri, almost all of its core products, in China during the trial.
Unlike other U.S. tech giants, such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, Apple has a strong presence in China. This is basically due to the desire of the Cupertino-based company to comply with China’s restrictive Internet laws, which led to the company’s complaint in the United States last month, Attorney General William Barr alleged, without presenting evidence, that Apple promotes the phones. China with security back doors available to local authorities. In recent months, rising industry tensions between China and the United States have led Trump management to target Chinese-generation corporations with opposing sanctions on products manufactured through Huawei and ZTE. Last week, Trump threatened to ban China’s social media platform TikTok in the United States.
In 2016, Apple lost a demand for high-value assets in China when a Beijing court ruled in favor of a Chinese company that manufactured handbags and smartphones under the “IPHONE” label. Previously, in 2012, Apple agreed to pay $60 million to resolve a trademark dispute with the company’s Chinese unit, which claimed ownership of the so-called “iPad” in China.
I’m a last-minute journalist in Forbes, with a policy of generating vital coverage and commercial news. Graduated from Columbia University with a master’s degree in business and
I’m a last-minute journalist in Forbes, with a policy of generating vital coverage and commercial news. Graduated from Columbia University with a master’s degree in commercial and economic journalism in 2019. He worked as a journalist in New Delhi, India, from 2014 to 2018. Do you have any advice? DNs are open on Twitter @SiladityaRay or email me to [email protected].