The Shanghai High People’s Court has ruled against Shanghai Xiaoi Robot Technology Co., Ltd. in a patent infringement action targeting three Apple entities, ending a dispute over whether Apple’s Siri voice assistant infringed a Chinese “chatbot system” patent. The judgment in Case No. (2020) 沪知民初7号 rejected all of Xiaoi’s claims, including a damages demand that, after adjustment, stood at approximately RMB 5.1 billion.

Background 

Xiaoi owns Chinese invention patent No. 200410053749.9, titled “A Chatbot System,” filed August 13, 2004, granted July 22, 2009, and expired at the end of its term on August 13, 2024. Xiaoi asserted claims 1 and 9 against a range of iPhone models from the iPhone 7 through the iPhone 14 series, all of which run Siri.

Apple stated that it could not produce Siri’s source code or technical documentation for comparison, and the accused products could not be examined through disassembly or reverse engineering to reveal their internal processing. After the close of argument, Apple submitted confidential technical materials concerning Siri’s natural-language processing system, contending that Siri processes all user input through a single AI pathway and lacks any mechanism to route shortcuts to a query server or game server.

Claim-by-Claim Analysis

The court found that the accused products met four of the six technical features of claim 1: the user-and-chatbot system (feature 1); an AI server with a corresponding database (feature 2); a communication module (feature 3); and a query server and game server with corresponding databases (feature 5). On feature 5, the court noted Siri’s ability to retrieve weather information through an app in response to formatted input, and its ability to run interactive games such as “knowledge trivia” and a “music quiz.”

The court found that two features were absent:

Feature 4 — communication through an instant messaging or SMS platform.A user’s interaction with Siri through voice or text input is substantially the same as ordinary input of information . Siri and the user cannot be said to occupy two ends of a network. The products also do not communicate with the chatbot through an SMS platform. Feature 4 was therefore not met.

Feature 6 — the filter. The court examined Siri’s shortcut-recognition mechanism. Siri’s shortcuts fall into three categories — user-defined shortcuts, app shortcuts, and preset shortcuts.  the court concluded that it could not find Siri to have a filter that routes formatted statements to a query server or game server. Feature 6 was therefore not met.

Because the accused products lacked features 4 and 6 of claim 1 — and because Siri’s shortcut-recognition mechanism was neither identical nor equivalent to the claimed filter — the products did not fall within the scope of claim 1. The court reached the same conclusion for method claim 9 on the same grounds.

Outcome 

Having found no infringement of claim 1 or claim 9, the court did not address Apple’s prior art defenses (based on the “SmarterChild” system and the “Catacomb” project), the disputed injunction question, or the damages calculation. The court dismissed all of Xiaoi’s claims and assessed the case acceptance fee of RMB 25,550,900 against Xiaoi. 

                                                                                                                                          Source  Shanghai High People’s Court  

                                                                                                                                                         https://www.hshfy.sh.cn/