Siri may soon be silenced in China, after a court in the country ruled that Apple’s voice recognition app breaches patents held by a local company.
Apple took Shanghai-based Zhizhen Internet Technology and China’s State Intellectual Property Office to court in a bid to have Zhizhen’s speech recognition patents declared invalid.
But a Beijing court has now sided with Zhizhen, declaring the patents valid and allowing Zhizhen to continue its case against Apple for infringing its intellectual property rights.
Apple plans to challenge the ruling in a higher court, according to local reports, but if the San Francisco technology giant is defeated it could lead to the barring of Siri and similar voice recognition technology featured on Apple gadgets in China.
Apple has launched an aggressive push into the Chinese market since debuting the iPhone there in 2012.
A Beijing-based Apple spokeswoman told Reuters: “While a separate court considers this question, we remain open to reasonable discussions with Zhizhen.”
