Taiwan school sues Apple over Siri app

A university in Taiwan says it is suing Apple over iPhone's Siri voice assistant app, saying it infringes a speech recognition patent the school filed in 2005. National Cheng Kung University says its patent, filed as a "Method and system for matching speech data," covers a method and system used to connect actual speech with recognized patterns and samples, Slash Gear reported Monday. The university says the patent was granted in April 2010 and notes the patent specifically refers to devices such as smartphones or tablets that use said technology. The school says it also has a patent granted in 2007 which covers a "Speech recognition system." "The [2007] '496 Patent is generally directed to a complete speech recognition system having a training button and a recognition button," the school says. Apple will probably contend the technology was developed outside of the devices it is now tied to, and that the iPhone and iPad don't come within the bounds of the patents since they're not made primarily for speech recognition, Slash Gear said.